Teachers

As the school year winds down again I think about my daughter and her teacher, and how much she will miss her dear teacher. Last year on the last day of school I picked my kiddo up and she was in tears. All of the kids were. They were a family you see, and they were being split up. For two years the kids had the exact same classmates and the same teacher. My daughter still talks about how much she misses Mrs B.

I expect some tears again this year, but not so bad. The kiddo actually had two teachers this year, so I don't know if the attachment is quite so strong. We shall see.

Anyway. It's made me a bit reflective on my old teachers, teachers who meant a lot to me or just were memorable.

There's Mrs. Mock, who was probably a nice lady, but we got off on a bad foot in third grade and never quite recovered. My fourth grade teacher was nice enough, but I've blocked a lot of that year out as my dad had recently died and it wasn't such a hot year.

Then there was Mrs. Carter in 5th grade. From her I gained a love of all things piggy. Mrs. C collected pigs and her classroom was full of them. But what made every kid want her for their teacher was that every one of her 5th grade classes had a class piglet. Yep, we had an orphan piglet that we fed and cleaned and played with all year long 'til it was strong enough to go back to the farm it was born on. To heck with hamsters and guinea pigs lol.

In 6th grade it was Mrs. Rauschenburger. She was the teacher who finally realized just how deep my love of reading was and she fostered it, recommending books and allowing me to stay in from recess and read.

After that my memory gets hazy. Starting with high school, I switched schools three times in 4 years. And you spend less time with each teacher, so while I had favorites each year they were never really special.

There was the junior high teacher who had dated my sister in high school. Weirdness.

And the first English teacher I ever had who didn't consider me his pet and yelled at me for talking all the time, lol.

And the algebra teacher who told everyone the first day of class that there was no such thing as a stupid question. Then several days later when I asked him to repeat something he gave me a death stare and told me, "I just went over that, I will not repeat myself, again!" I dropped that class that day.

The next teacher I had that made an impact on me was a college prof. He was passionate about his subject and a tough teacher. You either loved him or hated him. I loved him, his passion for the field, his ability to make us all think. The first class I had him for he terrified me at first. By the end of the semester I was hooked. I scheduled myself deliberately for his classes for the next year and a half and I did well. If I may pat myself on the back, I think he liked me as well. I was the first and only student of his to get a 100% on one of his exams and he appreciated that.

After that semester we all went off for summer break. Come fall I entered a class with follow journalism students and one of them asked if I'd heard the news. My favorite teacher in whole university had had a heart attack over the summer and died.

I never had another professor I liked quite so well. My enthusiasm for the subject waned until I was just going through the motions, ready to graduate and be done with school. By the time I walked across the stage at graduation I knew I'd likely never work in my field. (There were several other reasons for that, not just his death, but that certainly sparked the malaise that filled me back then).

I hope that my daughter is lucky enough to find some teachers who mean as much to her as some of my old teachers meant to me then, and that as she grows up she will think back kindly on some of them and smile.

Boooo :(

You might not know this, but I graduated with a degree in journalism several years ago and I'm a huge fan of the First Amendment, which is supposed to guarantee freedom of speech and expression. I'm also a big Greenday fan.

So what the fuck is up with Walmart? It's a long-standing policy of Walmart's not to stock any CD with a parental advisory sticker, so musical artists are given the choice of offering a cleaned up (CENSORED) version or not having their CD sold at the big box stores. It's a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.

AND Walmart still sells R rated movies, with swearing, violence and mature content. Many of these DVDs have unrated content on them that goes beyond an R rating. They also offer up video games with mature ratings. Hypocritical much? Who made Walmart the musical morality police, anyway? How about you let me decide to buy for myself and my child? It's my decision to make, not some big corporation's.

Good for Greenday for not bowing to pressure and refusing to censor their new album. From now on I will buy what little music I buy elsewhere. I don't think artists should be forced to offer dumbed down versions of their CDs, just to get in to the world's largest retailer.

Go support your local music store and buy the CD the artist meant you to have in the first place. And there's always iTunes ;)

Excellent weekend!

My bestest buddy and her son were here for two days. Too short really, but good fun. We ended up in Estes Park, playing in the snow. That would be Trail Ridge Road, btw. It's not officially open, but it's open a fair way up. We also went to Bear Lake, which is covered in snow as well, lol.

And speaking of Estes, we are less than a month away from the Estes Wool Market. I can't wait, I love the Market! And this year I think I might just have to buy some Yak yarn from Bijou Basin Ranch. They were at Estes last year and it was sooooo soft but I had to choose between them and Plain and Fancy. :( But this year the owners of Bijou Basin have put up a 15% off coupon, woot! This is their year, lol. (And I have two skeins of Plain and Fancy tucked away from last year, time for something new!).

Hmmm

I needed a change for my blog design, and I love the designs from the Cutest Blog on the Block, but none of them really fit me. This one is too pink. But I'm too lazy to design my own, lol.

And busy. My bestest friend from high school is coming to visit me this weekend. Which is brilliant, but made me realize that my guest bedroom is full of plants and craft items and sans bed! So I've spent most of the morning packing up scrapbooking, knitting and soap making supplies and cleaning up the fallen leaves and blooms that accumulate near plants. The spare room now has a bed instead of a craft table and sheets (finally found a matching set of full sized sheets lol, it's amazing how much of my stuff is still in boxes after more than a year!).

Anyhoo, I'm off to get cleaned up so we can go play for a few hours today now that that's done. Have a lovely day!

Brrrr

I put my geraniums back outside because the weather has been lovely and what happens? We get wind and rain and cooler temps. Poor things were totally battered by the wind. and of course we just turned our sprinkler system back on and it poured last night, lol. I think I'm going to go turn it off for tonight, I hate watering while it's raining!

Anyhoo. Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there. I got jewelery from my DD, a hand beaded bracelet :) I love it.

My baby

My darling daughter was born at 1:26 PM, May 9, 2009. She was a big baby, 8 lbs. 15 oz.

Today my little one turned 9 and as she's all too ready to tell me, she's not a baby anymore!

Happy birthday, dear daughter. You'll always be our baby *grin*

PS Two of the girls invited did respond, because we nagged them, lol. Both very last minute and while the kiddo is happy, I'm still peeved.

*sigh*

My daughter's birthday is coming up in less than a week now. We kept her invite list small, just 5 kids. I asked for RSVPs on the invites and would you believe I've not heard from a single person? How rude is that? No wonder kids are so screwed up now, their parents who really should know better are just as bad.

So for the education of anyone who might not know: An RSVP means let the sender know if you will be coming or not. Either way. It's just good manners.

"R.S.V.P. stands for a French phrase, "répondez, s'il vous plaît," which means "please reply." The person sending the invitation wo­uld like you to tell him or her whether you accept or decline the invitation. That is, will you be coming to the event or not? Etiquette rules followed in most Western cultures require that if you receive a formal, written invitation, you should reply promptly, perhaps that same day. For hosts who are planning a dinner party, a wedding or a reception, this is important from a practical point of view, because they need to know how many people to count on and how much food and drink to buy. More important, though, is the simple courtesy of responding to someone who was nice enough to invite you, even if it is to say that you regret that you will not be able to attend." --How Stuff Works

And really it's a child's party. It's going to break my kiddo's heart if no one shows up. At this point I am ready to make other plans for us for the day so she won't feel bad and if anyone responds at the last minute tell them to shove off :(

Broken Down

In more ways than one.

I broke down and gave in to peer pressure to read Twilight. After two of the ladies at work read it and raved about I thought about reading it, but the waiting list at my library is a mile long so I put it off. But the ladies conspired and brought in a copy for me to read, lol. I'm on chapter 4 now. I'm withholding judgment for now, Edward's back and forth like a fiddler's elbow and so am I, lol.

The other thing that was broken down was my truck this afternoon. I left work a bit early. It was really quiet, the guys had their tools out and were plotting new ways to take over all the space around them and it's lovely outside. Climbed into my truck, turned the key and nothing. Wtf? I looked to see if I'd done something stupid like leaving my iPod plugged in. Nothing obvious. The truck's light are automatic, so it couldn't be that.

I had to call the hubby to come jump start me. Luckily, that's all it took. I mean, as soon as his car started my dashboard lights came back to life, so it was pretty obvious the truck would start. He followed me home, just in case. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be ok now. I don't work 'til 3 PM tomorrow, so it leaves it a lot of time to decide to die, lol.

Edited to add: The truck did not start for work, so it goes in Friday morning. I'm hoping that we will get it back by the time I go to work again at 3. *Crossing fingers that it's something simple*

Jumped the shark

*Sigh* I used to love the tv show Ghost Hunters. I loved the way the went into an investigation with the intent to debunk and put homeowners fears to rest. To hear the "H" word from Jason was a rare thing, and usually had to be pried out of him by other team members.

But over the last several seasons the team has primarily gone into commercial locations, locations that I suspect are less interested in help getting rid of a ghost than they are in proving a haunting, purely to cash in on the additional revenue a haunting can bring in.

My first hint of things to come was when the crew went to the Moss Beach Distillery. The Moss Beach is a well known fake, with gizmos planted through out the building to "enhance" guests experiences. If I knew the place was a fake, why the hell didn't GH? They either need to boost their research or they went in with the intent of "exposing" the fakery to boost their rep.

I don't think I've seen an episode over the last two seasons that hasn't offered up some evidence of the paranormal, unless maybe a more recent epi in an old bowling alley where my hopes were falsely raised that the debunking was back.

Things like jacket collars so very obviously pulled, hangers conveniently tossed from off camera, EVPs that are just soooo damned convenient, they've all made me very skeptical of the show. And don't get me started on GHI!

But last night was the final straw. GH has jumped the shark. To investigate their own "haunted" inn was just too much! And to pull GHI into to give it an air of respectability... Whew. What's that smell? Something stinks of blatant and shameless self-promotion.

Bye - bye Ghost Hunters. I'll miss Steve and Tango's antics, but I'm so over Grant and Jason :(

I really should update my reading list

but I'm too bloody tired tonight, lol. Hubby's had a cold and starts coughing the moment he lays down, poor thing. And of course that keeps us both awake. Now my throat is starting to hurt and I am sincerely hoping that it's not strep.

Anyhoo, as usual I've read many books since my last post. The sad thing is, my waiting list at the library has dwindled to only 14 books! And 3 of those are for my daughter.

Part of the problem is, they don't seem to be ordering the books I want to read. Like the new Broken Heart Vampires book that comes out next month, and Undead and Unwelcome, which also comes out next month. And the new Laurell K Hamilton book that I can't seem to stop myself from wanting to read, if only to see the train-wreck that Anita's life has become. I mean, this sentence from chapter one sort of says it all, when Anita is talking about family pictures, "When you're sort of living with, at last count, four men, and dating another five, or six; who goes in the pictures?" Shesh.

Did I mention that my daughter is now reading some of the books I read when I was her age? And it tickles me pink that she's reading Trixie Belden and loving the BWGs! And she's doing a book report on The Great Brain. Again, I love T.D. and his brothers, lol.

Anyway. I started this post by saying how tired I am, so why in the heck am I still here? Lol. Night!

"The rain, rain, rain came down, down, down

in rushing, rising, riv'lets." --The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

That's how the last few days have been. At work we had a seriously leaking roof in several place, most notably in the print area. One leak was a pour, as opposed to a drip.

At home it appears our vent in the master bath has a drip, hopefully something as simple as just needing to reseat the cap. Mighty disconcerting when you get up in the middle of the night, more than half asleep and something cold drips on your head, lol.

And my friend Alan is now in a hotel with his family and their weekend company because the ceiling in their kitchen caved in due to the rain. Shesh!

The good news is it's sunny today, and is supposed to stay that way for a while now. And the mountains look brilliant in the distance, all snow covered.

Well, at some point I am heading to whatever hotel Alan is tucked up into to meet a fellow WoW guildie (his father in law, lol) from the small guild I belong to on Alan's server. And I desperately need to go do some dailies on Annstás to make some money to cover the repairs I've had to make thanks to a couple of painful Ulduar 10 person runs, lol. (Hint: Brand new level 80 really isn't up to Ulduar, but it was fun!)

Just when I thought it was safe...

to put away the electric blanket! I walked out of the house yesterday to a cold mist. Yuck. Didn't think to go back in and get a coat, just hustled to the car to get out of the yuck.

So by the time I left work at 3 PM, it was raining hard. And cold. By the time I ran the gauntlet (thanks go out to the ass who was turning and didn't signal so I had to stand in the rain waiting for you to drive by and then you didn't. Loved that.) and got to my truck I was soaked and peeved.

However, meeting the "girls" after work for drinks and appetizers was lovely and put me right back in a lovely mood, lol.

This morning it is still raining, which on the one hand is a good thing, it was supposed to turn to snow overnight, so I will live with the rain! But on the other hand, it's gray and wet and cold out there, lol. I try to tell myself that we are living in a drought, and that the rain is good for us. But my aching knee doesn't care about that and the thought of going to work in a bit is not a happy one.

Oh well. Nothing I can do about it. Guess I'll grab some more coffee and watch the rain for a bit before I wake the kiddo. Ciao!

All quiet

Not much happening here. Been rereading a lot of books, as you can see from my reading blog. Enjoying having three days off this week, with another to come quickly on Sunday since we are closed on Easter.

Finally got my death knight to 80 in WoW and really, just don't know what to do with myself now, lol. I started a shaman a few weeks ago, maybe I'll play her. She was actually meant as a joke. My guild has become flooded with characters that are called soandsosangel (so and so being the husband of the hubby and wife duo), and when someone suggested I make a character named after my hubby's character, I created a character called Imnoangel instead.

If I were to play any other character really, I'd rather just move one of my older chars from hubby's account to mine and continue to level that way. I've abandoned a priest, a mage and a warlock on his account, lol (I also abandoned a warrior, hubby took her and leveled her to 80 while I played my DK, so we now have a wide variety of characters to chose from). Gnorma, a gnome mage, is the most likely to be further leveled, purely because she's the highest level, at 47.

Then again, I've a gnome DK on another server that I created to help a coworker level, I may go back to playing her (I love her, just because of her name, lol. She's Abbygnormal *snicker*)

Oh! Ummm, hi!

So the blizzard wasn't really all that that much of a blizzard. We did get 9" of snow, and for a while there it was total whiteout. School was let out early Thursday and Friday was canceled completely, so the kiddo got a long weekend to play in the snow.

By Saturday most of the snow was gone again, since we warmed right back up. Typical March weather for us, lol. In fact the weather right now is much more typical than it has been all winter.

Anyhoo. Not much knitting going on, some reading. But mostly playing WoW again lately, since the hubby talked me into signing up for some raids lately. And strangely enough, I find I'm actually having fun, rather than dying of impatience every five minutes. Yes, there's a lot of standing around, but it's not as terrible as I feared, lol.

Going to grab some breakfast and play my death knight for a bit. Ciao!

In for it!

"A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM MDT FRIDAY.

SNOW WILL BECOME WIDESPREAD OVER THE ENTIRE AREA BY MIDDAY...AND
BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES...ESPECIALLY THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING.
NORTH TO NORTHEAST WINDS OF 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 45
MPH WILL PRODUCE BLIZZARD CONDITIONS AND CONSIDERABLE DRIFTING
SNOW ON THE PLAINS BY AFTERNOON. THE WORST CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
TO BE IN AREAS SOUTH OF A LINE FROM BOULDER TO AKRON.

TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS BY LATE THURSDAY NIGHT WILL RANGE FROM
6 TO 12 INCHES ACROSS THE NORTHEAST PLAINS...WITH 8 TO 16 INCHES
OF SNOW FROM THE DENVER METRO AREA TO LIMON...AND ONE TO TWO FEET
IN DOUGLAS AND WESTERN ELBERT COUNTIES. THE SNOW AND PROLONGED
WINDS WILL ALSO PRODUCE CONSIDERABLE DRIFTING OF SNOW."

We've been lucky this winter. Too lucky, 'cause Mother Nature has decided enough is enough and it's really ugly out there. In fact, I walked out into the living room (we've been tucked up into bed, reading, this morning, lol) and looked out the window and immediately pulled up the school district's web page. It's almost total white out out there, between the snow and the wind. Sure enough, the schools are all closing this afternoon. It didn't say when though, so we called the kiddo's school and they said we could come get her now. So hubby is on his way to get her and stopping for milk on the way, then we are going to hunker down for the rest of the day.

I'm supposed to go to work at 3 pm today, but I'm kind of thinking that may not happen. I hope not, because it's only supposed to get worse. I worry about my co-workers though, because both managers on duty today come from the next town over, as do the copy specialist and several others. Not a nice drive anywhere at this point, let alone along the very open highways between here and there.

Anyhoo, now I am waiting on pins and needles for the hubby and kiddo to get home. He's much better at driving in the snow than I am, thanks to safety training he was require to take at his old job, but it's still nerve-wracking, knowing how ugly it is out there.

UPDATE: Almost 8 1/2" now, with some pretty hefty drifts out there in the backyard. No school tomorrow for the kiddo. Good news is the wind died down around 1pm and the roads are just snow covered, you can at least see again. We got off fairly lightly, areas just to the south of us got a foot or more. Of course it's still snowing so who knows what we shall see tomorrow. But we are all safe and warm so it's all good :)

Home again.

Well, actually home again for several days. We got home Friday night and I went back to work Monday. Kind of a fast trip, considering all that driving.

But for the most part it was a good trip. We had absolutely wonderful weather, with only one day a little chilly, the rest of the time it was unseasonably warm. Even the day we spent in Madison was nice enough that we only needed light jackets/ sweaters.

Madison was wonderful by the way. Even if they didn't let me look for any yarn shops, lol. I could totally live there. We had a great time with friends we hadn't seen in years and got to see some of the U of Wisconsin campus. And to top it all off, our friends live only blocks away from the zoo and it's free! So we walked over there and spent some time wandering through the little zoo. Of course the kiddo loved that.

And as a little side note, the giraffes at the Henry Vilas Zoo came from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs (they let you feed them there, lol. It was way cool when we were there), so that's kind of neat too.

Anyhoo. I'm still tired from the trip, and had a bit of an emotional melt down Monday that I am still tired from as well, lol. So I think I am going to go soak in a nice hot bath and read. Ciao!

On our way!

We're leaving shortly for Iowa. Our yearly pilgrimage to the old homestead and Gram. Not sure what all we are going to do when we get there, but the weather is supposed to be quite lovely for once, so yay! Makes a change from our trip last April and rain, rain, rain and cold!

No WoW for almost a week, but I am taking some books and my knitting. And I never did check the mail yesterday, so I may do that before we go, just in case my needles are here. (Scratch that. Can't find one of my balls of yarn for the socks, and no time to look now).

Anyway, gotta give the upset cat some more attention and then get moving. See you all later!

Tools of the Trade

Tools I am taking with me on my USB drive to give my mother's PC a tune-up next week:

1. Portable Firefox
   Brilliant! I can run my preferred browser with my bookmarks straight from my jump drive!


2. Defraggler
   Because the built in defrag tool is rubbish!

There are a few other tools I will take with me, but I can't give away all our tech secrets, can I? Lol.

Other tools I am taking with me:
Size 10 1/2 straights, 10 1/2 circular. Lots of green Cascade 220.

Tools I will not be taking with me because they didn't arrive in time:
Size 3 40" circular needle for two socks at one time, Corntastic Yarn. :(

Knitting.

I am! But not what I was knitting. I picked up my knitting for my Flowers on the Go bag and looked at the mess it was and cringed. My join was lose and really the whole 6 rows of it looked awful. So it hit the frog pond.

And really, why the heck am I knitting a purse when I am trying to get away from carrying one at all? Lately I've been looking into just carrying my most frequently used cards (Sam's Club, debit, ID and library cards) with me. I've been looking for a hard card case, something I could just slide in my back pocket and not have to worry about.

Part of that is due to the fact that my old boss had her purse stolen last year and it was a nightmare. And we all carry way too much stuff with us. With identity theft on the rise, most prevention tips tell us to only carry the cards we use with us and to never carry your Social Security card with you. So why the heck am I carrying around store cards that I honestly only use once or twice a year?

And why am I carrying around a checkbook? I can't remember the last time I actually wrote a check at a store.

So anyhoo. What to do with all that green yarn that I would never use for anything else?? I wandered through Ravelry and finally decided to make a modified Booga bag. I've cast on 64 stitches and I'm going to knit for 60-ish rows on the bottom before I pick up stitches. It'll be my yarn bag for home. And if I knit fast enough, I may even be able to get my mother to line it for me next week, lol.

Mother Nature has an odd sense of humor

There's snow out there, y'all. Snow that we actually desperately need (rain just doesn't do it when the ground is rock hard. It just rolls off, snow on the other hand, seeps in). But that doesn't make it any less of a shock to the system when really we've not had much winter this year.

My mind knows that March is typically one of our wettest months, but this winter has been absolutely atypical. Anyone who says there's no such thing as global warming, or that it isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, needs a smack to the head. Or just to be brought to Colorado in July, because it's going to be an UGLY wildfire season.

Anyhoo. There's just enough snow out there to make my morning drive obnoxious, so I'd better get moving. Have a good day, y'all.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?*

Wow! It has been in the 70s the last few days and absolutely GORGEOUS! And of course, I've worked the last two days, lol. But tomorrow is supposed to be almost as nice, and I'm off work so it's all good.

Not much knitting going on here, but a lot of reading. I just can't seem to work up enthusiasm for knitting right now and I don't know if that's my projects or just me. I did pick up 2-at-a-time Socks though, and I've found the pattern that I am going to use for my daughter's Corntastic socks, Pitter Patter. It's a very simple pattern but that's what I need if I am going to try making them two at a time, lol. I just need to get a 40" circular now. It would be nice to have them ready to go for our trip to Iowa later this month.

Anyhoo. I'm tired and thanks to a co-worker, cranky. I'm going to grab something to eat and go see what's On Demand to veg to. Ciao!

*Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

"Mama said there'll be days like this...

...There'll be days like this, my mama said." -Dusty Springfield

Ah yes, today was one of those days. From the moment I woke up all too early til right now. I basically informed my boss this morning that I was going to go work in the copy section the moment someone else came in. He said, "Maybe." I said, "No maybe about it." And when D. came in at 10:30 a.m. I said, "Seeya." And off I went. Lol.

So I spent most of my day with pretty much just the head of the copy section and away from anyone I might be tempted to growl at or bite ;)

After work the kiddo read in her room and the hubby went and got food. I hid in the bedroom and watched Mike Rowe milk spiders.

Then I made the mistake of opening Sims 2 whilst the kiddo was in the shower so I could see what the new pets I imported yesterday looked like. Then the kiddo had to make a new family. But she dithered and dawdled and didn't even get one family member done by the time I came in to read. So I gave her the choice. Turn it off and read stories or keep going without stories before bed. When she continued to say "just a minute, just a minute," I turned the lights off and said good night. What I really wanted to do was scream and gnash my teeth and growl. Like I've wanted to do all day...

*Sigh* Must be bedtime for me now.

To quote Miss Scarlet, "Afterall, tomorrow is another day."

Not a wild night

Poor hubby has a miserable cold, so we put off a nice dinner until he feels better. No fun going out for a meal you can't even taste.

It was a nice night though. We dropped the kiddo off at a local program for kids (it was packed, lol. Every parent in town went, "Woot! No babysitter scramble!" Including us.) and actually enjoyed a few hours to ourselves in the evening. It's been a very long time since we've left the kiddo with anyone and gone out in the evening. And I think the last time we actually went out on our anniversary was before she was born!

The brilliant thing is, she had an awesome time and wants to go again. She immediately saw a couple of friends, though she didn't hook up with them for a bit, like I said, the place was packed with kids. They talked and played and watched other kids. The event is at the local rec center every Saturday, and there's tons of stuff for them to do. I see a few more nights out for all of us coming :)

Hubby and I did go out for burgers. Our local Culver's offered free two scoop sundaes with your meal so that's what we did. After we rolled out of Culver's we headed for the next town to the east, since they have a Border's and I had gift cards ;)

I really have a hard time finding things in Borders. It's not my fave bookstore. And Seattle's Best Coffee? Yuck. Even their frufru drinks are bitter. But free books are free books, so we go, lol. And after about 20 minutes I did find the book I was looking for, so it worked.

Anyhoo, the kiddo has finally stumbled out of bed, so I shall get us breakfast. Ciao!

Valentine's

Always a big day in our house. It's hubby's birthday and our wedding anniversary. It makes 18 years this year and it's also hubby's big 4-0.

At this point last year I wasn't sure we'd make it to 18 but I am very glad we have. He's my best friend in addition to my love and I'm very thankful to have him in my life.

Funny enough, his 40th doesn't seem to be bothering him. It's bothering the hell out of me though, lol. It reminds me that next year it's my turn and I feel very very old. It's had an odd effect on my psyche as well, since I've been having bad dreams lately, nightmares about growing old and infirm. It's silly since I know 40 isn't really all that old, but apparently my mind is having a hard time accepting that deep down.

Anyhoo, hubby is sick on his birthday and feels like crap, so I don't know that we are going to do anything tonight. Poor guy.

I was playing WoW this morning, but I am dreadfully bored at the moment. I think I shall just go read. I'm officially on book 29 for the year already, lol.

New toys... sort of

Blogger now lets you add a blogroll to your page, and sorts them in the order of who has most recently updated. I love it. Though I am having issues with the font size but that's another thing... See, Blogrolling was hacked a while back (October for crying out loud!) and it's never been fixed enough to allow me to do anything with it. Which is really rather annoying and in my opinion rather poor customer service, and had I been a subscriber I'd be quite pissed off, but instead I just left.

So anyhoo. I've added a blogroll for the Ravelry 52 books group, but since there are hundreds of people and blogs in the list it will take me a while. And quite honestly I'm being fussy and only linking book blogs or sites with separate pages for their book info. No offense, but I'm there for the books, not for the latest baby diaper change. Oh, I am snarky lately.

Whatever. I'm going back to my book.

Books!

You all should know by now that I love to read. And reading over at Ms. Amy's blog I found her 52 Books post and her attempt to read 52 books in 2009. I frequently pick up reads from the blogs I read, why not the idea of 52 books as well.

Like Amy I must visit the local library to support my reading habit. Especially since in a good week I can read several books. If you look at my list you will see that I am now on #21 already, lol.

So anyhoo, to keep track I've started a new blog, Tabhair leabhar dom! which is Give Me a Book! in Gaelic. You're welcome to trundle on over and check out what I am reading.

Oh wow

I found my very first blog post ever tonight, lol. It goes just like this:

I decided to try my hand at this whole Blog thing tonight because I just have so many thoughts running through my brain. I sometimes think that if I don't get some of them out, I might just go crazy...

This seems like the ideal place to share my thoughts.

A little about me. I'm 31, married to a wonderful man for over 10 years, and we have a lovely daughter named Isabel. We'll be celebrating her first birthday May 9th.

I posted that on April 28, 2001. It's funny to see what I liked graphically back then, and how things changed as I learned my way around html, and finally CSS.

Rofl

The "great debate" on Dear Abby for the last two days... Thongs up or Thongs Down.

Are they comfortable? Are they sexy? Are they sleazy? Or are they just a way to avoid VPL (visible panty-lines).

I'm no fashionista. But a while back E! did a show on Fashion Do's and Don'ts and there were two things at the top of the Don't list. Mom Jeans and VPL. I don't wear Mom Jeans and I don't have VPL, so I guess I'm more fashionable than I thought ;)

So. Are they comfortable? Don't tell me they aren't comfortable if you haven't tried them. I'm so sick of people who have a lot to say about things they've never tried or considered doing.

Are they sexy? Don't care. I'm not wearing them for anyone else.

Are they sleazy? Nope, the man looking at my ass noticing I have no panty line is the sleazy one. Yeah, I am sure there are women wearing thongs who are sleazy. I'm also sure there are some who wear regular old undies that are sleazy. It's the person inside the knickers that's sleazy, not the knickers themselves, lol.

Frankly, I don't give a damn about what kind of undies a person wears. It's not any of my business. Really, let's keep it that way.

(Note to all those who seem to think that really low cut jeans are the only alternative to Mom Jeans: I don't want to see you panties and/or your crack when you bend over. In men that's called plumber's arse. Think about it...)

Winter

has returned to Colorado. While most of the Midwest and the East was in the deep freeze last week, we were reaching record high temps. My poor little mother was freezing in Iowa while we were running around in short sleeves. As my boss said one day, "Yesterday was the perfect April day. Only not in April." Lol.

So this week the weather has changed and it actually feels like January. We got some much needed snow as well. (We all forget just how necessary snow is to our area when we are running around enjoying 70 degree temps. But without adequate snowfall we have things like this and this at a weird time of the year and goodness knows what come July!). Between this week and one bitterly cold period where it barely got out of single digits, we've only had about 2 weeks of winter.

And even now, the temps are only short lived. One more cold day today, then back up to the 40s and 50s. Who says there's no such thing as global warming??

Anyhoo. Off to the shower before it is time to get the kiddo up for school. Ciao!

Call me a pessimist if you want but

I prefer to think of myself as a realist. I'm thrilled that G.W. is gone. Oh so thrilled. But I'm also pretty darned sure that Obama comes without a magic wand. I'm almost positive he's a muggle like the rest of us...

Yes, change is good. Yes, I voted for Obama and I do think change is coming. But it took things a long time to get this screwed up. It's going to take a long time and more than one man to get it all straightened out again. Honestly, I actually feel sorry for Obama, because he has a long row to hoe and very high expectations to live up to.

Most blogs and comments to blogs I've seen make me think people either think the man is a saint (which I think he would be the first to admit is not the case) or that he's gonna wave his non-existent magic wand and things are going to be better over night.

Let's be realistic here. He's one man working with at least 535 other people (the House of Representatives and Senate, not to mention cabinet members, advisors, and other world leaders...) that all have their own interests and opinions. Even with a longer than usual presidential "honeymoon" period like experts are predicting, when does government ever move quickly?

Change'll do you good and I believe it's coming, but don't expect too much too soon from this one single person. Give the man the chance, and the time he needs.

Knit Twit Trips Down Memory Lane

I wish that it was possible to program a playlist in YouTube, without joining anyway, lol. There are a million and one songs there that I don't have in my iTunes. Songs that I would never pay for, like anything by Metallica (insert raised finger here). *Snark* I imagine they'll come after YouTube soon (and insert again) lol. And there are also a lot of songs I have in iTunes that no longer exist on the old puter. iTunes no longer exists on the old puter, lol.

Really though, my hubby was playing my metal playlist the other day (aka WoW PvP tunes, nm that I don't PvP anymore) and he bitched that I should rename it to AC/DC list, lol. Well can I help it that most of the metal I've loaded is AC/DC (and really, it's only 17 of the 35 songs in the list, rofl)? I have more of their albums than any other metal band. And sadly, a lot of my metal music is in that unplayable, old-fashioned format, the dreaded cassette tape! And iTunes just doesn't have Megadeath available for dl. But even YouTube doesn't have much of the old punk that I loved, like the DKs (listening to "Institutionalized" right now, thanks to Jango, lol. "All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi!" And of course we can't forget the classic, "I Saw Your Mommy" What scares me is I still remember the lyrics to both songs, haha. What a sick child I was, lol.)

Anyhoo.

I did actually cast on for my bag tonight. I need to work up a few more stitch markers, that or find the ones that my daughter ran off with because they were pretty, lol. Hmm, she got a jewelery kit for Christmas, maybe I'll steal some of her charms, haha.

(PS This little trip down memory lane brought to you by phone calls from friends out of the past ;)

Ok so recasting on the

Flowers on the Go bag the other day was a rather ambitious idea as it turns out. Just balling the last skein was a project in itself. New Years Resolution number 2: From now on I only buy yarn at places that ball the yarn for me ;)

I have a ball winder. It works fine and dandy. But the last three skeins of yarn I've tried to wind have ended up a tangled mess 2/3 of the way through. I would guess that this last skein of yarn took a good two hours for tow of us to wind.
how the heck it gets so tangled I know not. One moment everything is fine and the next there is 50 yards of wool in one giant knot.

So while I love my closest LYS because the owner is friendly and helpful when I need help and content to let me just wander and touch yarn when I don't, she doesn't ever offer to ball the yarn.

The adorable LYS in the next town over (love, love, love the location and the atmosphere of this store!) has friendly and helpful employees who ALWAYS offer to wind my yarn.

Even the employees at the single most unfriendly yarn shop I've ever been in wound my yarn for me the one and only time I shopped there.

I don't know, it just seems life (and knitting time) is too short to waste untangling wool ;)

New Year's Resolution

Yes, I know it's a little late. But still... My resolution this year is to get a family photo taken. Our last family photo was taken when the munchkin was probably 2. And that was just a shot we set up before Christmas in front of the old fireplace so really, it wasn't even a great picture. This year I want a real photo taken, and since you can't really beat the price it's not asking for a lot, is it?

It hit me last year when we were at Mt. Rushmore and someone offered to take a pic of the three of us (and cranky hubby said no, but that's another story) that we really needed to do this.

Of course, hubby and I have both put on some weight this last year (being out of work and sitting on one's arse eating chocolate tends to do that...) but oh well.

My other resolution is to knit more. I just need to make the time. I have some lovely stash yarns that are just begging to be used. Heck, I have some UFOs sitting in my knitting drawer. The Flowers on the Go bag needs to be frogged and the new skein of yarn balled so I can cast on again. I've socks on the needles. I've got Corntastic yarn begging to be knit into plain Jane socks for the kiddo. And my Brooks Farm Yarn is crying to be knit in to something fantastic. Not to mention my spiderweb shawl...

Oh yeah!

This year about 3 days before Christmas I smacked myself in the head as I realized I had forgotten our Christmas Kringle. Oh the heartbreak!

Well, last week I solved the problem and ordered my Kringles. Today they arrived, lovely and fresh. Raspberry is my hubby's favourite, and this year I tried the cherry cheese. YUM! I've also had the pecan, which was delicious as well. Happy happy happy!

Memories

So I was cleaning off the old computer tonight, trying to get anything salvageable off just in case we need to do a reformat. Some of my old recipes are in a Works database format that I can't access with the new computer, so I was printing some out and copying others into a readable format when I ran across a recipe I hadn't thought of in years. As a kid it was my favourite desert ever. It never had a name that I could recall, other than Grandma's Bars.

I swear, I am going to make some soon, even though I know no one else in my family will eat them. I'll take half in to work, lol. But I just have to have them!

It's a very simple recipe. Smooshed graham crackers, brown sugar, butter, and coconut are all mixed together and boiled, then spread over a layer of graham crackers and topped with more graham crackers. Then you frost the whole lot with frosting with a touch of lemon juice in it. Sounds so damned weird, but they are soooo good, lol.

And of course I found the old Christmas recipes. Recipes I haven't made the last few years because we haven't been doing the turkey and stuffing routine. See, I have a secret...

I go into my local grocery store and I order Christmas dinner ;) This year we had a lovely spiral cut ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole and a truly tasteless apple pie. Everything but the pie was delicious. We ate every last bit of the ham, making ham and bean soup with the leftovers. And the only dishes I had were the pan from heating the ham and the plates we ate on. Brilliant! No one spent the day in the kitchen and we had an amazing meal.

Tonight I am using up the massive container of dates that I bought because I hadn't had dates in years and had to have them (yeah, I do that a lot) by making date bread. It's a new recipe, hopefully it will be good.

Anyhoo, better go check the bread. Catch y'all next year!

Edited to add: Bread was not so good. I love allrecipes.com most of the time, but occasionally no matter how good the ratings are on a recipe they turn out to be stinkers. :(

Post Christmas Consumerism

Apparently the new Black Friday is the day after Christmas now with stores offering deep discounts to after Christmas shoppers.

Me, I'm not really planning on taking advantage of any of these sales. But my dear big brother sent me some money for Christmas and I plan on hitting the yarn shop. I originally started knitting the free smaller size version of this pattern. I was quickly distressed by how small everything seemed. I mean I was using the shortest circular needle I could get and I couldn't join my stitches, even following the hint to use two needles together for the cast on. So I switched to DPNs and it still seems very small. And it's supposed to be felted...

The whole thing is tucked away in a Ziplock bag where I glance at it now and then and shake my head, lol. I think I decided a while ago that it was never going to be completed in its current state. So thanks to my brother I can go buy the full sized pattern and more yarn. I'm not worried about matching dyelots, since I am working with two strands held together. I'll just hold one of each dyelot and it will all be good ;)

And now that the weather is cold again I am thinking of picking up my needles and starting my socks again. I actually wore my wool socks the other day and loved them. This next pair is going to be a normal sock though, instead of just the footie socks. My ankles get cold lately, lol.

I've also promised the kiddo we could scrapbook tomorrow. We got my mom a digital picture frame for Christmas, so scrapping for her isn't such a big thing, but Nanny and Granddad haven't gotten a page in over a year. And we've a new scrapbook just waiting for them. (It was actually supposed to go home with Uncle Andrew last Christmas, lol).

Anyway, have a lovely Boxing Day ;)

Happy

Christmas y'all! Hope it's been a lovely one for everyone!

Exploding muppets

My daughter has a couple of eyelash scarves that I knit (my first knitting projects actually). One is adult length because it was originally knit for someone other than my munchkin. That is of course the one she chose to wear to school last week when the temps were below zero.

So long story short, she was carrying it home one day and her hands were full and it was dragging and sploosh! Right through a muddy puddle. Hubby washed it yesterday. It's acrylic. It's machine washable, right? Lol. All the clothes in that load look like an orange muppet exploded on them. We will be picking orange strands off of things for a while. Luckily the black pants I wear to work escaped with only two strands that were quickly picked off.

Baby it's cold outside!

On Saturday the temp was in the 50s. On Sunday the snow was falling and the temp had dropped to 3 degrees. Yesterday it was -15 when the kiddo went to school. Brrrr. Today looks a bit better. We actually have a chance to get above freezing, lol.

It could be worse though. I talked to some WoW guildies that live in Canada. Temps are 30 below in places there (an apparently in some places in Montana too). Yikes!

We didn't let the cold keep us home though. Hubby and I went out and did what I hope is the last of our Christmas shopping. Gifts are in the mail to my mother. Cards will soon be in the mail to those that I could be bothered to send them too, lol. And last night was the dear daughter's Christmas show at the school. So we all trekked out to that.

We certainly didn't stay outside any longer than we needed to, that's for sure.

Anyhoo, I'm off to get dressed for work. See yas!

Tribute

Y'all might not know this, but I love pin up art. I especially love art by Olivia, and particularly those she's done of Bettie Page. So I was dreadfully saddened to hear that Bettie Page passed away today.

So here's my little tribute to Ms. Page, the quintessential pin up girl. (I almost feel this is too modest to do Ms. Page justice, my favourite pic ever is this one followed closely by this one).

Mellow Black Friday

Every year I dread the day after Thanksgiving. Shoppers are crazy that day, as evidenced by this and this. So working on Black Friday sends a chill down my spine.

Last year I worked in a mall that decided opening at midnight would be a great idea (this year the mall opened at 11 pm on Thanksgiving night for crying out loud!), so we had to spread out our employees kind of thin throughout the time period. Which really wasn't a good thing, since we were also going out of business at the time and everything in the store was on sale so things were nuts.

This year I work for a company that's a little different. We opened at 6 am, so I did have to be there by 5:30 but that's not terrible. Yes we had a line. Yes we were busy. But things ran so smoothly that by 7:30 am I was able to break out without anyone freaking out. (Last year was, "break? What break? Lunch? We've got goodies on the counter, graze!").

And luckily for us, we've got really nice patient and polite customers :) Lines moved steadily and no one seemed to mind. But boy am I glad another Black Friday is behind me :)

Best WoW commercial... EVER!

*Grin*



I love Ozzy, lol.

Wool!

I bought some lovely green wool yesterday so I can start knitting today. Of course, I bought the wrong size circular (I don't know what I was thinking buying the longest cable length, lol) so I shall have to exchange that this morning.

And for once I actually dread going into a craft store. Why? Because JoAnn's has cinnamon scented pine cones at the front door that stink the entire store up. It's absolutely overwhelming. I don't mind the smell, in smaller amounts but this is just awful. It's no wonder they are in the entryway rather than the main store, the employees would keel over, lol.

Anyhoo. Gotta go run herd on the munchkin. See yas!

Not Knitting

*Sigh* I haven't picked up my knitting in days. I'm bored with it, lol. There is a reason many people keep more than one project on the go at a time and I've found it. It's funny, because I cast on for Cherry Bomb because it was so simple, but I have to say the straight stockinette is boring me to tears. Yes I can knit and watch TV at the same time without any thought, but blah. Not to mention the fact that we're hardly in tank top weather now, eh?

I do want to go to my LYS on my next day off. I've seen a pattern (Flowers on the Go) that I liked and need to buy some wool for it. I'm falling back on the old felting fun ;) I need a new purse, my poor little Sophie is looking a bit worn.

Ohhh, WoW is me...

Ass in, woe is me. WoW was to do their normal Tuesday maintenance today, be back up by noon our time. Ummm. Now it is 8 hours later and they are still not up. Of course, I had today off work and thought that between this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon when I have to go to work I'd be able to make a big push toward level 70 with my Alliance druid, Morticia. I hit 69 with her yesterday. Not bad, from level 62 to 69 in less than a week. I jokingly said to my hubby last week that we had seven days to get seven levels and we've nearly done it. Now if WoW would just cooperate. *Sigh*

Remembrance Day

The 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month. Today is Veteran's Day, or Remembrance Day as it is known most of the rest of the world. Whether you support war or you don't, remember that our military folks are just doing their jobs and give them a pat on the back. And maybe at 11 am today, where ever you are, stop and take a few minutes to remember all those that have died serving our country.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae

Go and

VOTE!!!

Roflmao

So I got home from work tonight to find a box sitting on my chair. It was from the Beverage Gourmet. The company I ordered my Pumpkin Pie Sauce from. I was amazed that it had arrived so quickly, as it only shipped yesterday. I actually ordered through amazon.com. So when I found an actual web address for the B.G. on the invoice I went there, they had to be close since it shipped so fast.

Umm. They're just a few streets down from us, lol. I about died when I saw they were local. I paid them ten bucks to ship my sauce, hahaha.

So we are having 'puter issues, AGAIN. So the new 'puter goes off to work manana, where my boss said he'd have a look at it. Yay, my boss is a brilliant tech. And he's a sweetie to look at the stupid thing for no charge. I'm so glad he likes me, lol (all the managers do apparently, since I got employee of the month last month, lol. Never got my 3 month review, but I figure that means I'm doing something right).

Strangely enough (and I am almost afraid to say it for fear I will jinx things...) the old 'puter seems to be behaving quite properly at the moment. So... *Knock wood*

Anyhoo, I think I am going to call it a night. We are all off tomorrow, so I may actually get to sleep in a bit. Yeah right. I almost always wake up at the ass crack of dawn, lol. The good news is, come Sunday, 5:30 am comes an hour later, and wouldn't it be nice if my body decided that that was ok and continued on like normal? Lol. That sounds ever so convoluted, but you know what I mean. Or maybe not, but oh well *grin*

For crying out loud

I'm getting absolutely fed up lately with WoW. It's up and down more often than a fiddler's elbow. Tuesday it was down from before I woke up until at least 1 pm. Then there have been the rolling restarts, which normally only takes it down for a few minutes at a time, but always in the morning, which I'm sure is their low traffic time, but it's my prime playing time, lol. And now this morning they are having a "brief maintenance" that should only last about 3 hours.

I realize they just put out a huge content patch and that's why all the issues but I also find it absolutely amazing that they would release something so blasted buggy! And just think, in about two weeks we get to go through this again with the expansion. Yay.

Really my biggest annoyance is I pay a monthly fee to be able to play this bloody game. When it's down, I can't play. Where's my recompense? Okay, to be fair there is a post on the message boards about giving us credit for time lost, but no one is saying how much at the moment. *Grumble*

So anyhoo. I ordered me some Pumpkin Spice Sauce for my coffee. Yum. I've decided that I adore Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice lattes and since I can't go there all the time, I'll make my own, lol.

Okay, gotta go find a pic of Snoopy rising from the pumpkin patch so I can carve my pumpkin this evening. See yas all later!

Jeez

Where does the time go? And I've had so much more of it lately too (I just had three days off, you'd think there would have been some productive time in there, wouldn't you?).

And yet all I've really done is read a little and WoW a lot. I actually hit saturation point yesterday afternoon though. I logged out in the middle of a very frustrating battleground and only went back in occasionally to Trick or Treat, lol.

Saturday was actually a lovely family day. We headed for the zoo. Boo at the Zoo to be exact. The kiddo wore her costume and trick or treated whilst we enjoyed the animals. It was a madhouse. Sooo many people, sooo many kids, lol. Note to parents: If you plan to take your babies and young toddlers, maybe waiting until after their nap would be a good idea rather than instead of a nap? I saw so many tired and cranky kids and surely that's not what the day was meant to be.

Mind you, my kiddo actually fell asleep on the way home, and hubby and I would have liked to have napped as well, haha.

Anyway, it's back to work for me today so I had best go get ready. See ya all later!

And now for something completely different....

I don't usually use this space as a political forum. But with less than three weeks from the election I feel as though I must speak my mind.

First, I feel strongly that it is every American over 18's duty to go out and vote. If you don't vote, don't you dare come back to me and start bitching about the government, our economy, the war, whatever. Don't tell me you don't have time, or you can't get to the polls. Most states have mail in ballots available to everyone now, especially to those who won't be home to vote (The state of Colorado offers a mail-in ballot to everyone. They also offer early voting to those who can't vote on election day. Early voting begins Oct. 20th. I will be making my vote count Monday).

But most importantly I feel the need to urge everyone in Colorado who values choice to vote NO on Amendment 48. Amendment 48 proposes amending the Colorado Constitution to:
* define the term "person" to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization"; and
* apply this definition of person to the sections of the Colorado Constitution that protect the natural and essential rights of persons, allow open access to courts for every person, and ensure that no person has his or her life, liberty, or property taken away without due process of law.

What all this legal speak means for women is that a fertilized egg is a person. Therefore any form of abortion would be illegal. There is no out for the other person involved (the mother) in the case of medical emergency.

But the biggest issue I have with this amendment is that it would make many birth control forms illegal!

You all have a right to your opinion on abortion (though I do ask you to keep it to yourself here, thank you), but NO ONE has the right to tell anyone that they can not take reasonable steps to prevent an unwanted pregnancy! No one should be forced into parenthood. No child should be made to endure being unwanted.

Amendment 48 is intolerable. It's also unconstitutional and will result in an expensive, drawn out, legal battle that will cost the taxpayer.

VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT 48!

I started

to blog the other day. I got one whole sentence written before my attention was diverted elsewhere, lol.

It's been very Autumn-y here lately, 40s and gray and rainy until yesterday. Yesterday the sun came back out and we made it to 50 degrees. It was absolutely lovely :) The cool, wet days reminded hubby of home and he's battling a touch of homesickness at the moment. He and the munchkin wet walking in the misty rain a few days ago whilst I was at work and in the damp the next day as well.

The Cherry Bomb is moving again. I've knit a bit here and there over the last few days, most especially whilst we all watched The Princess Bride last night. Now I love me a good fairy tale and a cheesey chick flick, but this has never been one of my favourite movies. But hubby loves it and well, on Talk Like a Pirate Day I ran into a bunch of movie clips containing pirates and The Dread Pirate Roberts moved into other clips online whilst the daughter sat next to me which lead to the promise of watching the entire thing some time.

We all had a lovely time and enjoyed the movie. Still not one of my favourite movies (there's no chemistry between Cary Elwes and Robin Wright! The scene where he is leaving Buttercup to go off and make his fortune and he's talking about true love, he swear his stare is totally dead. But anyhoo...) but we all giggled our way through.

On the reading front, Eightfoldrabbit asked if I'd read Patricia Briggs. Funny you should ask, as I just finished Cry Wolf. What seems like ages ago now, I picked up an anthology called On the Prowl, purely because it contained a Monere story by Sunny. I read the Patricia Briggs story, liked it and that was that until I was wandering through Barnes and Noble one day and happened across Cry Wolf on an end cap. I picked it up and realized from the blurb on the back that it was the continuation of that short story.

Loved it! So I now have the first two books of her Mercy Thompson series on hold at the library. Yay. And thank goodness for libraries, I tell you. With a voracious reading appetite like I have I'd never be able to afford to keep myself in books with out my local libraries! And one library has this cool system called Prospector, which connects to a bunch more libraries and allows me to get books from them if my library doesn't have them. They send the book I request to the local library and I just go pick it up, read it and return it like a regular book. Brilliant! And it's FREE! I think at any given moment I have at least 10 books on hold ;)

Anyway. I finally found me some guild love in WoW for Alas. Joined yesterday, so hopefully I will have better luck with this guild than I have in the past. Why is it so blasted hard to find a decent guild Horde-side on my server?? This new guild is just what I am looking for though. They are all pretty casual, though they do raid. But I don't have to do anything. My main interest is in making some friends before the expansion comes out so I can go explore then.

I had to laugh though, the person I was talking to about the guild before I joined was all, you can't raid unless you are geared up first. Ummm. Did you not look at my character on the Armory? The only top of the line piece of gear I am missing is a new axe. But since I am primarily a long distance damage kind of girl, that's not a big issue. Yes, all my gear is PvP rather than PvE, but it's just as good as any PvE gear and makes me rock in any setting, lol.

Well. Better finish breakfast and hit the shower. Today is one of the few shifts I actually work this week, so I had better get to it!

Yeah well...

Still no knitting going on, but I did buy myself a set of cable needles and now I am looking for a decent (read: simple) cable scarf pattern to knit for someone for Christmas. Not sure which stash wool I will use, most likely the Plain & Fancy, because while I have no idea what I am going to do with the Brooks Farm, using it on a scarf for someone else is not in the plan ;) Yeah, I'm feeling totally selfish about that yarn!

The good news is I did find one book in my stack that kept me enthralled all the way through. One Foot in the Grave was a much better book than the first in the series and now I am eagerly awaiting the release of the new book, At Grave's End, in December.

And I finally finished the Kitty book, along with the next in the series, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, (which I enjoyed more) and now I'm eagerly awaiting the next two books in the series, due out in January and February. Yay.

And of course the old stand by authors are coming out with new books soon (see my wish list) as well too, so that part of my ennui will hopefully end soon ;)

Anyway, I've the day off, so I am going to go see what kind of trouble I can get into today ;)

Yum!

I love October and Halloween. We've got our smashed witch on the front door and our ghost lanterns lit.

And this evening we baked a lovely apple pie. And soooo simple. Just preheat the oven to 350 and get out a medium saucepan. In the saucepan mix a 1/2 cup of each: White sugar, brown sugar and butter, add 3 tablespoons of flour and a little water and slowly bring to a boil. Simmer. Then take 6 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced and layer on pie crust in your favourite pie plate (mine's a deep dish, 10 inches so you might want to do less apples). Pour the caramel over all the apples, top with a second crust, vent a bit and bake. I recommend a cookie sheet under the pie plate in case of bubbling over!

We baked ours for probably 45 minutes 'til the crust was golden brown.

Things we learned: with juicy apples you really don't need to add much water to the caramel mixture, next time I may not add any. Maybe toss the apples in the caramel before pouring in pie plate. Add a bit of vanilla to the caramel for an extra bit of flavour. And have ice cream or whipped cream on hand to eat with the pie, yum! Lol.

This pie was wonderful though, just the tart tang of the apples with the sweet caramel, not hidden under all the cinnamon flavour you usually get in apple pie. Hubby liked it so much he threatened to eat the whole pie right then and there ;)

Ennui.

I can't get into anything right now. I don't believe I've knit a stitch in more than a week. I have several books on the go at the moment, none that holds my interest for longer than a chapter at a time.

I've got the "at work" book, Kitty Takes a Holiday, the after work books, Death Perception (this is one of those authors that has more than one series and I like the other series better, but...), Hungry Ghosts (ok, I have to be fair, I only just started this one tonight and I'm only a few pages in) and somewhere in this house I have my traditional spooky-ooky-it's-Halloween-ghost-book, along with the latest Christine Feehan book, Dark Curse (I'm losing interest in this series unfortunately, they are all so very similar now and I'm really starting to get tired of the overly macho dominating males, I've not really enjoyed one of these books since Dark Melody), another called One Foot in the Grave, which I've not even opened yet, and umm, another in a series that I was half-hearted about at the best of times and now have really lost interest in. Nothing has grabbed my interest and held it since I finished the last Odd Thomas book.

Not one of them am I any farther than a few chapters in, well, except for the spooky-ooky-it's-Halloween-ghost-book because that's all short bits and interesting ;)

TV isn't really doing it for me either. Even good ol' Ghost Hunters is paling this season. *Sigh*

And WoW. Well, I hit 44 with my gnome mage. She's out of rest experience, so she's in the inn for a bit until I get that back. Alas is 70. Got my last top tier item last week. I made the guys at work freak when I jokingly mentioned that I'd had to do some dailies to earn some money back after I got my new helm and had to gem it, which dropped me under 10k. "10K? You're freaking out about dropping under 10k? I've barely got 100 gold!" Ummm. No. But they don't seem to grasp that I've been 70 for quite some time now. There's nothing more I can spend money on in game, so of course I have the money. I'm bored. I actually took up fishing in the game, just for something different. I'm really looking forward to next month and Wrath of the Lich King.

*Sigh* This too shall pass. Soon I hope.

Under construction!

Pardon the mess whilst I change over to my October look ;) It's going to stay a bit messy for the rest of the day as I don't think they'll let me work on my blog at work, lol.

Happy October, y'all!

Sad and silent

We just can't win

Our new computer arrived early last week. We thought that was a good thing. But honestly, it has been trouble from day 1. It constantly disconnected from the wireless network, froze and gave us USB errors, causing bad shut downs similar to the old machine we were trying to improve upon. So we did some reading online and followed the instructions. Some few hours and another $20 later things seemed more stable.

Until my hubby went raiding in WoW that night. Then it froze and we had to power down. Again, USB errors and aggravation. I went in to work the next day and bitched to my boss that Vista sucks and it's a power hog and he looked at me like I had grown a second head. "Bring it in."

I wish I had been able to convince my hubby to heed my boss' advice. Instead the problem grew steadily worse. We finally called Dell who had us run the diagnostic and told us it had to be software and that we needed to go back to factory settings and start again. *Sigh*

Guess what? It's even worse now! I started up this AM and no sooner had I established my wireless connection than it just crashed. No freeze this time, just a blue screen and error code. It then restarted itself, and seems ok now, but I wasn't going to push my luck, I'm on the old computer now.

So basically what I have learned is that Vista is conflicting with one of the three programs I have put on the new machine, but not entirely sure which one:
1. Firefox
2. Thunderbird
3. World of Warcraft. Now that would just be brilliant, seeing as how this machine is literally built for gaming and it won't run the one game we want it to. And unfortunately, up until late last night this seemed the most likely culprit as the crashes occurred most often whilst WoW was running.

The damn thing is going into work some time today. I would quite honestly love to box the bloody thing up and send it back to Dell and call it good :(

Good news and bad news. Bad news is it was Warcraft that was conflicting. Good news, it wasn't conflicting with Vista. And it didn't have to go into work with me after all. Bad news, it's conflicting with my virus software. Good news, all I have to do is turn off it temporarily whilst playing. All in all, it's still a pain in the arse. I'm tempted to put McAffee on instead...

Ahoy!

By the Powers! Ye didn't think I'd let Talk Like a Pirate Day pass without notice, did ye? Grab yer grog and some dubloons, matey and plunder!!

If ye be a WoW fan, head yerself to Booty Bay and party with the Dread Captain DeMeza, where it be Pirate Day. And don't ferget yer pirate togs and grog! See, there be the Dread Pirate Alastrine. Ye don't want to be tanglin' with that wench, do ye? I have me a big axe and I not be afeared to use it! ;)

And go get yerself a pirate name. I be the newly named, Pirate Val the Staggering Drunk. Yo ho ho and a bottle o' rum!

Chugging right along

The knitting is going. That's all I'm saying, lol.

I've been reading a lot lately too. A co-worker introduced me to Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas series, I'll start book 3 tonight. I used to read a lot of Dean Koontz in high school and early in my marriage. Somewhere along the way I just stopped reading for some reason. So when my co-worker offered to loan me the first two books I jumped at them.

One reason is because it's a series. I love series books, I love watching the characters develop through out the books, learning more about them.

And of course, it's fall, with All Hallow's Eve approaching, my favourite time of year. So the ghosty books have hit my reading list as well.

I've started keeping an Amazon wish list again. Mostly to remind myself of which authors I like are coming out with new books so I can remember to request them from the library ;) But Amazon also has a Universal Wish List now, so I can add links from anywhere I like, lol. So now I have knitting things on my list as well. I've stuck the link in my sidebar so y'all can see what I'm reading and what I'm lusting for ;)

In other news, we've bought a new toy. It will hopefully arrive next week. Our computer hard drive is dying. It keeps freezing up, leaving us no choice but to shut off at the power source. That inevitably screws with Windows XP and we have problems.

So now I shall be switching to Vista. I've played with it a bit at work, we shall see.

I think perhaps

I should just not blog about my current knitting project status. It seems that every time I do, I end up in Frogville.

This time it wasn't because of a mistake, at least not that I know of. This time it was because of the way sets of stitches were lining up funky. I noticed that every once in a while a small section, usually for an inch or so, the stitches would look off. And if I flipped to the wrong side of my knitting, you could see that the purl stitches were absolutely lined up.

Instead of looking like this:
- - -
 - -

They looked like this:
----
----

Which in the grand scheme of things wasn't really noticeable to anyone. Except me. And it finally got to me enough that I frogged. So we will see if it's something I did unintentionally or if it's the funky twist of the cotton yarn or what. I just know I couldn't let it continue without at least trying to fix it. *Sigh* The joys of perfectionism, lol.

Lovely

What a difference a week makes! Labor Day weekend was truly the last summer weekend if this week has been anything to go by. Last weekend was hot and I remember wishing for fall to hurry up and get here ;) Come Tuesday, autumn arrived. The temps dipped and I am loving it. This next week should stay in the 70s as well. Of course, this means I need to tidy the spare bedroom up a bit, so I can move my geraniums indoors before the first frost (Which I am begging for now. Just one hard frost to kill off all the weeds that are making me miserable, lol).

I'm thinking it could be a long winter though. The high country had its first snow a few weeks ago, actually leaving several inches behind in the lower mountains and it has certainly snowed above tree line since. But that's ok, I have plenty of knitting to see me through ;)

Speaking of knitting, I'm plodding along on Cherry Bomb. I've reached the first repeat of waist shaping on the front (so about 5 inches, lol). I joined the Big Girl Knits group on Ravelry last night and went through the posts on Cherry Bomb whilst I was there. I am now very glad that I added an inch to the length, since the biggest lament of CB knitters was that it needed to be a bit longer. I tend to like my tops a bit longer anyway, and looking at pics of FOs on Rav made me decide to add a half inch. Fortuitously, I lost track whilst watching TV the other night (new Ghost Hunters) and when I checked length it was 4 inches instead of 3.5. I didn't have the patience to unknit for half an inch, so I left it and just changed my notes on my pattern. I think the extra half inch is better.

My next plan is to pick up a cable needle tomorrow and try my hand with some leftover yarn at cabling. I want to make sure I can turn out a nice cable before I commit myself to yarn for the Susie Hoodie ;) I've priced the yarn though, and figure I can get it for a reasonable price, so that's good.

Anyhoo, I have to work today so I had best get moving. Ciao!

No laboring on Labor Day here

For the first time in years I have Labor Day off. We haven't planned a bloody thing, other than I know I have to go to the grocery store at some point today.

Not sure what I will do today. I've been doing very little knitting. I've only just begun Cherry Bomb (nothing like waiting until autumn to start a summer tank, lol).

There's been a lot of reading. Nothing spectacular that stands out though, just quick reads, like a bunch of cozy mysteries. I do have Acheron in the bedroom, waiting to be cracked. It's a tremendous volume, 736 pages, and I just can't seem to be too terribly interested. *Sigh* I will read it soon though, it's a library book and must go back soon.

As always there's been a lot of WoW. I've got Alastrine kitted out in top gear, although she could use a new helm at some point, I think I will start work on that today in AV.

I've started playing one of my old Ally 'toons again yesterday. Gnorma is a level 32 gnome mage who needs a lot of help, lol. But at least she's high enough to have a mount to ride instead of running every where. I sadly don't have the patience for that any more, Alas has spoilt me, with her flying mount and her very fast Cobalt Riding Talbuk. Gnorma's mechanical chicken mount is almost too slow for me, (And so incredibly stupid looking!) lol. It's been a bit tough getting used to soloing again, after having a pet to help Alas kill things, and the whole magic thing is odd too. Gnorma is an incredible squishy compared to Alas at this level, so I have to be careful about what I take on or she ends up dead.

Anyhoo. It won't be long before the family is awake, so I think I shall take the last of my quiet time and head for WoW. Ciao!

Well what do you know...

I was looking for a recipe on the 'net this afternoon and as I went to close out my browser I got a pop up window that said "Warning, your computer is infected!" And it claimed to be Windows XP Antivirus 2008. When I tried to close the window without installing it tried to install the software anyway. I hurriedly turned the computer off.

McAffee is running on it now, just to make sure, but I think I caught it. This is the evil virus I was talking about. It's not an anti-virus program like it is claiming to be.

Unfortunately, most people don't know that and they immediately click on the "Remove all threats now" button.

So word to the wise, don't visit web sites you don't know and don't trust anything that tries to download automatically.

Since I've not done one in ages...

Snagged from Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison and elk.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding I know what this is made of ;) Likely no, never.
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht Not a big beet fan.
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi- haven't tried it, but I love curry so I'd likely eat it ;)
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle- it's a shroom, and an expensive one, chances are no, never...
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Grapefruit wine from the Amanas.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries Itty bitty baby wild strawberries! Yum!
23. Foie gras Goose liver. It's the entire animal part thing again. But I have had pate and it's good so I'd try it.
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese There's a reason this is called head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper I've tried dried ones. Made me sneeze, lol.
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters Do Rocky Mountain Oysters count? ;)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas Yuck!
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi Sweet Lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float Black Cow, anyone?
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea Yum!
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo I would try this given the opportunity.
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects Not intentionally, but I've had bugs fly into my mouth while outside ;)
43. Phaal This I would try, as I love hot curries!
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu Sorry, I don't feel the need to tempt fate by knowingly eating something that is poisonous if not prepared just right...
47. Chicken tikka masala Brilliant!
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear I'd try this.
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV Don't like beer.
59. Poutine I'd try this given the opportunity
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads Sorry, but I have enough problems eating regular cuts of meat, innards are not happening.
63. Kaolin Hah, if you've ever had Kaopectate you've had this ;)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian Ha, I saw this one on Bizarre Foods. I don't know that I could get past the smell.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis Animal parts again.
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe HATE anything black licorice flavoured
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill Well, maybe if I were starving....
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef Can't afford it.
86. Hare Wouldn't order it on a menu, though I'm not against trying it.
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse Nope, never.
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish Yum, mud.
95. Mole poblano I would try this given the opportunity
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor Can't afford it and really wasn't impressed enough by the lobster to order anything with it again.
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee YUM! A restaurant in Moab, UT used to serve this with breakfast. Brilliant.
100. Snake

I'm a pretty fussy eater. I tend to stick with what I know. The few times I've gone out of my comfort zone I've found things I really liked (curries) and things that were nasty (why didn't Rocky Mountain Oysters make this list?). But I do occasionally try new things.

As for the alcohol related items, I'm not a big drinker. I don't like beer at all and usually only drink sweet white wine (travesty, I know!).

Watch out!

I work in a store where we provide tech service and computer fixes. There's a nasty virus out there that seems to be spreading quite rampantly in the last week. Update your anti-virus and get yourself a spyware removal tool. Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy are both free and easy to use.

We have at least 10 computers hooked up, waiting for spyware and virus removal. Each owner originally came in to buy a brand new computer because theirs were so screwy. But virus removal isn't cheap. $100 will get your computer cleaned, but you'll still have to buy an anti-virus (or renew your original one), so you're looking at $150 at least. Save the money and get the anti-virus now and keep it updated!

And speaking of computers... We got a new monitor a while ago. It's a lovely thing to behold. Lovely vivid colours, all in a fairly compact package. It's a larger monitor than my old one, yet we gained more space, purely by losing the huge bulk that was the old monitor. Yay!

But because of the new monitor, this blog looks sad. It's overly bright to me, and oh so dull. And of course with a different resolution than this was built in, and fixed spacing, there's way too much "white space." So look for a change soon. I just have to decide what I want. That's the hard part, lol.

Technical Difficulties

I can't connect to Blogspot, so I can't see my own blog, and I can't get to my blogrolling list or see any other blogspot blogs. No idea why, but it's pissing me off. Hopefully be fixed soon. See you soon!

Speaking of Big Girls...

I decided that the tank I am going to knit is Cherry Bomb, from Big Girl Knits. I love the shaping on this pattern. I've tried store bought tanks before and by the time I get one to fit my chest I end up feeling like I am wearing a sack. So I am quite hopeful that this one will fit nicely. I am going to add about an inch of length to it though.

And I found another pattern I really like too. The Susie Hoodie, from More Big Girl Knits. I've always loved the Rogue Sweater. But now I've seen the Susie and I think it would work better for me. I rarely wear sweaters. A jacket I could just pull on, now that's the thing for me! The cables have me nervous, but I've been wanting to try them anyway so why not on something like this?

I've started to post several times now...

And each time I get a few sentences in before I run down. Work is turning out to be ok. I like the people I work with, I really like not having to deal with the unemployment jerks, but I am already tired of sore feet at the end of my shift.

I have cool shoes. They really do help. But there just isn't any escaping the fact that I'm on my feet seven hours a day and I'm a big girl. I guess I still need to be looking for that dream job, the one where I surf the internet all day and only deal with people through email

I've done absolutely no knitting in the last few weeks. I just don't feel mentally awake enough by the end of the day to knit lace and days off are spent running errands and such. I need to start something simple, I guess. I have some lovely red cotton that I was going to use for Soleil, but for some reason the lace on that killed me. Maybe a more simple tank? This maybe? I really like the Flow tank the Harlot did, but I can't pay $16 for the book A.t.M.

Anyway, I'd better go. The family will be up soon and I'll never get any WoW time, lol.

Irony?

I don't have a problem with alternate religions. In fact, at one point I researched Wicca and thought seriously about becoming a Wiccan (I will admit now that it was mainly to freak out my mother, though I find many of the Wiccan beliefs appeal to me still, but anyhoo...), I don't post this out of malice but it did tickle my funny bone.

"A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual at a central Indiana cemetery."

Was this an example of her luck and the reason she was performing the ritual?

WTF?

This morning started like any other day. I got up, put the coffee maker on (it turned out to be clogged and we cleaned it at home rather than sending it away, yay!), and then booted up the 'puter.

I got a message from McAffee that my virus protection was expired, so I deleted the old and went to download the new from my ISP. In the process I restarted the 'puter and lo and behold no wireless connection. It didn't exist. Somehow, some way, our wireless disappeared.

And not just on the desktop. Neither laptop would connect either. Not a provider issue, we still have tv and phone. Several resets later and the dragging of tower and monitor to the physical connection to the internet and resetting the network later we have the 'net again, but... It's still odd. Still can't connect on the laptop. The networking card doesn't want to work. And well, the settings of the network aren't right. Like we missed a step along the way?

I'm tempted to pick the brain of the compu-geek at work if he's there tonight but I don't know him very well yet, and it seems a bit presumptuous, lol.

Speaking of work, so far so good. I am hoping I can finish all of my certifications there tonight, I've only been doing exactly what they are for for a week now, I should be able to pass easy enough. ;)

Uh oh!

Abby says it's not polite to knit or crochet while attending a meeting or social gathering... What say you?

I say if it's a small meeting, yeah maybe. But if it's a huge conference room and you aren't bugging the person next to you and you can still pay attention and contribute then you are fine.