Isn't it cute?

Got a special someone you want to send a valentine to? From February 1-14, 2010, more than 60 volunteers come to the Loveland Chamber to lovingly hand-stamp each Valentine card sent to the ‘Sweetheart City,” Loveland, CO.

To have valentines re-mailed with the Loveland postmark, enclose your pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelopes (add extra stamps/postage for heavier/odd shaped valentines)and mail in a large stamped envelope to:

Postmaster - Attention Valentines
446 E. 29th St.
Loveland, CO 80538-9998

Deadlines for re-mailing and delivery by Valentines Day, Feb. 14:
Valentine cards/envelopes destined for re-mailing outside of the U.S. to other countries and international destinations should be in Loveland by Monday, Feb. 3.

Valentine cards/envelopes destined for re-mailing within U.S. and outside of Colorado should be in Loveland by Saturday, Feb. 8.

Valentine cards/envelopes destined for re-mailing within the state of Colorado should be in Loveland by Tuesday, Feb. 11.

The Olympics is coming!

In one month it will be time for the Winter Olympics. This year I am captaining Team Colorado for the Ravelympics 2010. I'm also hoping that The Yarn Harlot will put together the Knitting Olympics again this year, as it was a lot of fun 4 years ago :) (I knit a Dayflower Scarf then. This year I hope to knit this baby sweater as my main project as well as enter with my red Monkey Socks in the UFO category, lol.

The baby sweater claims to be a 5 hour sweater, but I know my knitting skills and speed and the amount of time I will actually have time to work on it and judge it a worthy project for two weeks ;)

Dammit!

The most comfortable bra I have ever owned just broke! I've only had it since Aug. and the underwire just snapped in two today. When I put it on this afternoon I thought it was fitting a bit odd but I was in a hurry and just shrugged it off as an oddity. It wasn't uncomfortable so I didn't think of it again until I got home and took it off. I thought maybe the wire had just shifted and I was all set to move it back. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered it was broken.

I loved that bra, darnit. And I've never had an underwire break that soon after buying a bra. So I rated the bra on the store's web site and sent off a peeved email to customer service. I guess it's time to start looking else where for bras now if the quality has gotten that poor.

Woot!

Red sock now has a cuff, lol. And a lifeline so I can frog back to pre-lace status if need be ;)

I was going to start knitting a baby sweater tonight, but then I remembered that somehow my size 10 1/2 needles got broken. And it snowed today, leaving the roads rather hellish so I didn't want to stop on the way home from work. (Hellish as in, 4 wheel drive and I was still having traction issues, no acceleration. Not that I wanted to go much faster than I was but....).

So I guess I will stick with the socks for the moment. Now that I have been knitting them I am antsy to get them done, lol. Guess we will see what the weather and roads are like tomorrow, maybe I can get a new set of needles then. Luckily, Baby Tess isn't due 'til March and even a slacker like me should be able to finish it by then. *knock wood*

Anyhoo, got a headache so I am going to head for bed.

Happy New Year!

Hoping for some changes this year :) Good changes. The biggest change will hopefully be change in my job situation. I'm still hoping for that promotion, but it looks like it may be sooner rather than later. The woman I would be replacing will be leaving (if all goes well) at the end of January, rather than waiting until March. Which means hopefully by the end of January I will have a new job, a higher wage, paid vacation, better benefits, etc. *Crossing fingers*

I wish you all a happy, healthy 2010.

Knitting again

I've really slacked on the knitting front lately. Mostly in favour of reading. I've read a ton this year. When last I left my reading blog I was at 98 books on May 20th. By now I have easily hit the 200 mark.

But now the weather has turned colder and I'm actually wearing my wool socks and wanting another pair. So today I turned the bedroom upside down trying to find the Monkey Socks I cast on in 2008 (lol). In the process I broke a light bulb in my lamp, shelved numerous books that had been piled on the floor and found a stash of candy wrappers in the bed that I believe the dear daughter stashed there after surreptitiously obtaining them from the Halloween stash.

I did, or rather the hubby did, find yarn and needles and I found my pattern binder. But I think I shall have to frog, since I've no idea where I left off in the pattern! Luckily, I've only really done the cuff ;) So that's my plan for the evening. See y'all later :)

Just a reminder...

With the New Year coming, why not start it off with a faster computer? Run your defrag program (windows has one built in). It may take a while, so start it before you go to bed. Fragmented files take up a lot of space on a computer and if that's something you don't have a lot of any way, reclaiming that space will help your computer run faster. (My defrag is STILL running, at 84%. I had 35 gigs of fragmented space, eek!).

While you are at it, download all the recommended updates for your system. And make sure your anti-virus is up to date. If it's expired, go buy a new one. I hear so many people grumble about how anti-virus is a money sink, but it's amazing how much worse that grumble is when they find they've a virus and that it's going to take 72 hours to clean their computer and a whopping $110. Buy the anti-virus. Most software comes with multi-computer licenses. Split the cost with another family member or a good friend. When the subscription comes up for renewal at the end of the year, you only have to renew it once, so you can split the cost again ;) It really is a wise investment.

And don't forget to back everything up! External and portable hard drives are cheap now, if you don't have one go get one. I can personally tell you how heartbreaking it is to have your hard drive fail and lose every photo you've taken over the last 5 years! I was lucky, most of them had been copied to a disk for the grandparents, but some of them are lost forever :( Not to mention if you move some of those photos off your computer you can open up some valuable free space on your computer again :)

Happy Holidays!

Happy Christmas to all and a very Merry New Year :)

I have to work Christmas Eve, but only until 6 PM and honestly, I'm not really convinced it will be all that busy. I mean really, who needs copies or stuff printed on Christmas Eve?? Maybe last minute photos as gifts, I suppose.

We are mostly done with Christmas shopping. Just have to wrap our little bounty now. Thinking about nagging the hubby to help me with that in a moment, whilst the kiddo is still at school. (Last day before break, bet the teachers had a great day, lol).

We are rolling out and cutting our cookies tonight and I made Peppermint Patties to take in to work with me. Yum!

Anyway, have a lovely holiday and I will see you in the New Year!

PS Lesson learned: No matter how tempting the idea to use powdered sugar instead of flour when rolling out cut out cookies, DON'T. Even if a television cook says it is a good idea!

Glaring!

Typos that is. I get most of my news from the internet. I have a journalism degree and it really makes me crazy when I find typos in an article. Today I've found at least three.

This is the headline I just found, "No school! Alabama calls of classes for title game"

And then this one, "Different courts have came down on different sides on what exactly should be said, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said." from an article on Miranda Rights.

This one was at least caught and fixed at some point, but a note was left at the bottom of the article saying, "[Editor’s note: The original version cited the wrong year twice.]"

There was at least one more that I found this morning but can't remember which article it was from.

All I can say is, why is no one editing these articles? Why is there no proof reading, no fact checking? Why is grammar not important to internet news? Grrrrr.

Glad it's over for another year

Black Friday is over and done, and I believe we all survived pretty much in one piece! It was a bit hectic, when they put me on the schedule as "runner" they weren't kidding! I'd start off to get something for a register and a customer would grab me on the way. And since we had a line all the way to the back of the store, the register could not wait. So unless the customer asked for an item in the same area I was heading to I had to ask them to wait.

The good news is, most people were very good about it. In order to keep the cashiers from getting too stressed and to keep an aisle clear we actually formed a single line about 5 feet before the registers, then funneled people to the cashiers as we could. We only had one woman (that I know of) try to bogart her way into line. I politely informed her that the end of the line was toward the back of the store, she turned around, looked at the line, looked at the one item in her and and said, "You've got to be kidding me." But she went to the end of the line and still only waited about 5 minutes 'cause we rock ;) We had every register in the store running.

We sold a crap ton of computers and would have sold a crap ton more if we'd had them. In fact most of our computers were sold before we even opened the doors (Yay for the voucher system!). We sold a crap ton of GPS systems too. And software. And... a whole heck of a lot of other stuff lol.

The one regret I have is that our system was down so we couldn't pre-ring transactions. We have a system kind of like Sam's where we zap everything, stick all on a little card and all the cashier has to do is zap the card at the register. Very handy with long lines, but I'm guessing that due to high volume, the system crashed, just when we needed it. *Sigh* But like I said, we still rocked it without it. And our lines we done by 7:30 AM. After that it was just a steady flow all day, enough to let us breathe again lol.

Frankly, the days after Black Friday were worse! Mostly because that's when people come in expecting to get the items we had on sale on B.F. and of course we sold out of them.

Here's a tip for you bargain shoppers out there: At Christmas time, go the day the ad comes out! Supplies are limited. After the debacle of being stuck with too much stuff last year stores ordered lower volumes this year. And when you come in 3 days after the ad (when sales have changed over completely!) and someone tells you they are out of that item, please don't yell at the employees. We have no say in the matter. We don't do the ordering. We would like to have the product as much as you would like us to have the product because we can't sell what we don't have and that hurts us too! We will do what we can to get you the item, but it may be that it's just not out there to get.

Wish me luck!

I've applied for a promotion at work and I am interviewing for it today. This would make me full time, better benefits etc. It also would add more responsibility. Honestly, there are three of us applying for the position, 2 of us whom I really think actually have a shot at it. Although the 3rd person could surprise me and interview very well. He has a charm about him (don't get me wrong, I like him for the most part but the man is a snake oil salesman and would do very well selling used cars...) that could be in his favour. But, I think that he would be the most disadvantaged if he got the job, because frankly I think the others would have a hard time working for him... Then again, they may have problems working for me, as I am not a proven entity in sales.

Honestly, if I don't get the position I won't be crushed. It's basically sales leader, and my sales skill are rusty and I've never played team sports so my coaching skills are non-existent! But then again, the other two have zero coaching experience either, lol. I've applied because I need the sales experience if I am going to get anywhere within this company. And well, full time/better benies, you know.

If I don't get the spot, in a few months another position opens up and my boss has already told me he wants me training with the woman now. I'd still have to interview for it, but being trained for it already would give me a huge jump on anyone else who might apply within the company, and already being in the location and part of the team is huge ;)

I've huge shoes to fill with either position. But like I told my boss, I don't want to be a cashier forever. Of course, he told me I was selling myself short, 'cause I'm not just a cashier, and that made me feel really good. I have had a minor promotion to internal key carrier (no extra cash, just a lot of trust and again, that makes me feel good) so my time as cashier is actually quite limited lately. And I don't have to run a register on Black Friday, yay! But I digress...

Seriously though. If I don't get the spot I'm interviewing today and the one guy gets it, I will be thrilled for him and wait my turn in February ;) And since I at least have that option and the other two don't, I consider myself pretty lucky.

Anyway. I had better get moving as I need to finish my coffee and get ready for work still, and I'm down to 10 minutes, lol. Ciao!

Update: Little bit pissed off still. The guy that was doing the interviews decided to do phone interviews and between he and my boss (who just days before told me he thought I would be good for the spot) decided that I would be better suited to the second spot that would be opening up and therefore decided not to interview me. But a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and the future job opening is still unsettled. The woman who is leaving may decide not to leave or something. So that bothers me. I'm glad to know the job is mine if it happens, but...

At the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month

On this day in history...

Veteran's Day is no longer just about remembering the dead of WWI, but about remembering all our veterans who have served our country and protected our freedom, especially those who have died.

No inspiration

After Halloween I needed a new design for the blog. And I just can't find anything that inspires me to design something myself. My creativity is at an all time low. Part of this is a lack of decent free image sites. Years ago, I used to make a bit of extra money by designing Moveable Type websites. Back then there were wonderful sites, run by talented photographers and artists who just wanted to share their art with others. I still have images from some of those sites tucked away, and I have over 100 old blog designs saved (not all designed by me, I had a partner at the time and I still have all her designs as well).

Out of all those designs can I find anything that grabs me and makes me want to use it? Heck no. Mind you, part of that is pure laziness on my part. They are all coded for old MT, not the new Blogger. So there would be a bit of work involved to redo them for this blog. And I just can't seem to find the drive to do so.

Especially not when there are some amazing premade templates out there. In fact, I've not designed my own blog for ages, because I have found so many fun templates out there already.

I do know I need to get out of this creative funk. I knit for a bit the other night on the bag that will not end. Got bored. So no knitting. No writing in years. Now no design. (Which is especially bad when someone asks me to design something at work! Oops.).

Anyhoo. Guess I'll stop whinging and go take advantage of someone else's creativity and read ;)

Boo!

I love Hallowe'en! The kiddo and I had a crazy day. We went downtown for the safe trick or treat, then out to the area where I work, for the Halloween Hullabaloo.

Then it was home for some lunch and a nap for me, lol.

Tonight we trick or treated all over our neighborhood and even went back to our old neighborhood. I'm pooped, lol.

Sweet 16

Or maybe not. We've had a bit of snow 'round here lately. Hubby just measured the snow on the car and there's 16 inches of snow on the roof. In the back yard there's a snow drift that is probably 4 feet deep! It started snowing Tuesday night, and snowed all day yesterday. Luckily, the main roads were mostly just wet, a little slushy in places, by the time I got off work. We shall see what they are like going into work later today.

The kiddo is happy though, because we decided to keep her home yesterday, rather than have to take a chance on crummy roads in the afternoon. She didn't get to play in it til later in the day tho. She's off school today and tomorrow too, so she will have plenty of snow time.

Windows 7 is here!

I installed Win 7 nearly two months ago, and I have to say I love it. My computer is snappier, it seems a lot more stable (*knock wood*) and it's got some cool new things without the weird and annoying things Vista had. And the good news is, if you have more than one user on your computer or if you let a guest log on, your data doesn't all disappear! Sorry, just my little dig at the holier than thou Mac users out there ;) There are a few ugly bugs on Mac's Snow Leopard, lol.

And with Microsoft offering a 3 computer version of 7 for only $149.99, it's a pretty good deal. Which is why no one can keep it in stock! Hopefully more will be coming soon, 'cause I want it for 3 more of my computers, too.

Snow!

Forget fall, we've headed straight into winter, lol. Tomorrow we're looking at a high of 34 degrees! And yet the analysts are saying we're going to have a milder than normal winter. Ski areas in Colorado are already opening.

I think they've last year's data mixed up with this year's, lol.

Update: It's snowing pretty good right now. Hubby asked if I thought we should cover my geraniums, and since we moved them right up close to the house under a covered porch I said no. But then I said, "Really they should just come in." So I went off to make room for them and when he brought them in they were literally covered in snow. Poor things, I hope they survive :(

Meanwhile I have to be at work at 8 tomorrow so I guess I'd best set my alarm a bit early just in case. It's sticking to the road out front, so I may need to leave a bit early.

Er, um, well...

Woot! It's Autumn! And wow things got hectic. We've lost our assistant manager at work, she's been given her own store now. Which is great for her, but boy it's weird at work. So our keyholder is picking up some of the slack, but there's still too much to do. So I've been made an internal keyholder now, along with one of the guys I work with. Our GM comes in, lets us in the building, hands out keys and goes home so he can mostly have a day off.

We'll be getting a replacement, but the person is coming from California, so needless to say it'll take a bit for him to get things worked out.

So anyhoo. I'll be around sporadically. I haven't even bothered much with WoW lately.

Take care y'all!

A touch of autumn

Fall is certainly in the air today. A cold front settled in over us last night so we turned on the heat before we went to bed. Just in case. And since the high today is only going to be 51, I'm glad we did. I love the cool weather, but the kiddo freezes at night so...

And this morning I went to search out my slippers (anyone seen the left one by any chance??) Instead I grabbed my lovely hand knit wool socks ;) Hmmm. Might be time to dig out the Monkey socks that have been languishing for over a year now and attempt to actually complete them, lol.

In other knitting news, I cast on for a new scarf in my lovely Brooks Farm Solo Silk. I'm going with Feather and Fan (this version).

Now I am going to go spend this rainy autumn day being a bum (waiting for FedEx to bring me my new phone. They picked the one half hour I was out on Friday to attempt to deliver, dammit). I see some WoW, reading and knitting in my future ;)

Getting into the spirit of things...

Since September 19th is once again International Talk Like a Pirate Day:

My pirate name is:

Bloody Morgan Vane

"Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. You tend to blend into the background occasionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!"

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network.

Last year I was Pirate Val the Staggering Drunk. Umm. I like this one better, lol.

Remember the Dread Pirate Alas from last year? This year it'll be Morticia partying with the Cap'n in Booty Bay, lol.

This fall is packed with things to do if you're into WoW. The Harvest Festival is just around the corner, followed bu Brewfest, then Hallow's End and Day of the Dead. Then comes The Pilgrim's Bounty and finally Winter Veil. Lol.