An Informative Day

I've learned about a couple of new things today.
First, Pandora.com. Barry showed me this site earlier this week, but today was the first chance I've had to really play with it. You can create your very own radio station based on the music you like. I saw Leon Redbone on the first season of Saturday Night Live and I liked him, so I based a station on him. You can thumbs up or thumbs down the songs that it plays and it will narrow down your station. So, the Leon Redbone station plays bluesy guitar with vocals music. It started to play some twangy country (Hank Williams) which I'm not a fan of, so I thumbed that down and it seems to be going a bit more jazzy now which I like. Pretty cool site. Now I need to make a more upbeat station for work. No downloads required!
I also learned how to make light boxes through Liberty's blog. There are some great cheap ways to make them. I'm totally going to make one for work. I'll be using to photograph my knitting too, of course!
I've been feeling a little under the weather lately. Nothing bad, but I'm trying to nip it in the bud before it gets bad. I can't remember if I told you about this, but last year around this time, I had a really bad congestion problem. Instead of getting congested in my nose and sinuses like normal people, I got congested in my ears. That lead to dizziness. Really bad dizziness. About once a day for 4 or 5 days, I had a dizzy spell where I couldn't move for an hour or two. It was terrible. All I could do is lay where I was and not move my head at all. I started taking decongestants because I'd had something similar but not as severe a few years back. When I went the doctor, he said I was doing the right thing and that it would just take some time. I'm afraid it may be starting again so I've started taking decongestants every day. Hopefully, it will go away soon.

I Made a Little Barry!

So, I got Sims 2 Deluxe with that Amazon gift certificate you got me. I made Barry!I'm quite proud of myself! I didn't come out so well. I may try again and then post a picture. The problem is that you can't change their height, so I am way too tall. And according to Barry, my Sims' face is too long.
I set his aspiration on Pleasure and set his personality to Gemini. His life goal is to become a Professional Party Goer.....how fitting!
I set my aspiration on Knowledge and set my personality to Capricorn. My life goal is to become a Mad Scientist....mwah ha ha!
Super-fun game....I'm going to go play now!

Sale on Bags at Fred Meyer!

There's a sale on re-usable grocery bags at Fred Meyer. If you buy $75 worth of groceries and use a Fred Meyer rewards card, you get 3 free bags. After that, the bags are 2 for $1. 2 for $1!!! We got groceries about 2 weeks ago and used about 16 plastic bags. This time, we used 6 re-usable bags. Only 6! They are huge and fit a ton of groceries! It was nice taking less trips from the car up to our third floor apartment. We bought a couple of extra bags too just in case we need them. This sale is going on until November 17th, I think. If you've been thinking about switching, now is the time!
Fred Meyer should give me a commission.

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

So I finally got around to looking through all of the pictures that my parents and Barry & I took on our vacation. You can view the original post here. Here's some of them:

This is Shell Falls. It is named Shell Falls because of all of the seashells the pioneers found in it. Needless to say, I stayed very far away from the railing although Barry tried to throw me in a couple of times.
Here we are at a Dinosaur Tracksite. This area had a dried up river bed that had a bunch of dinosaur tracks imprinted into it.
Can you find the Dinosaur track? There's actually a lot of them in this picture!Yay! You found it!
This is at the Thermoplis Hot Springs. They had a hot springs water park there and other hot springs all around. Stinky!
At Yellowstone, we saw Old Faithful... buffalo......
a marmut.....buffalo......And a natural bridge that was nowhere near as impressive as the one in Virginia.We went to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.......and rode on empty saddles.Buffalo Bill is Barry's hero.Totally unrelated to the vacation, but this one was in the pictures and I had to share!

By Popular Demand....

I will create a new post! ;D
I've been meaning to write one, but I had the worst day on Sunday and have been in a funk most of the week because of it. We have tournaments for this game called Heroclix. They're little plastic dudes from DC and Marvel comics. You battle against other players. We've been doing them for a couple of years now. All of my players are really nice, friendly people. We encourage fun playing. Well, we had a guy show up at our last tournament that was a complete and total dick. He was mean and rude to everyone. He won the tournament and got the big prize. A figure worth about $200. I told him his attitude wasn't appreciated, to take his prize and go. Instead of leaving, he decided to start a big argument with me and my players.
You know how bad I am at confrontation, so this was really hard. Luckily, I didn't break down in front of him. I stood my ground and was firm. My players backed me up too. But after he left, I was a mess. I didn't want to stay at work. I didn't even want to go back for the next couple of days, but someone's got to pay the bills. Rick didn't really help me out much either. I don't think he realizes how bad this kind of thing messes me up. I wonder if there are classes you can take. Assertiveness classes or something.
So now, I've got two weekends of Halloween parties. I'm sitting here right now with bright orange hair dye on my head. It's some weird brand I've never even heard of before. I've been having the hardest time find a place that sells my brand of hair dye. I called all the hair supply places and even a couple of music stores (which there aren't very many of around anymore). There was a record store that used to carry it, but they went out of business. So, if anyone knows where I can get Special Effects (other than Hot Topic), let me know! I think I may have to go to the internet to get some.
It's been freezing here lately. I've been trying really hard not to turn on the heat, but I think we may have to start now.
I got the pictures from my mom from our vacation. I haven't had time to process them. Hopefully, I'll have some time next Friday.

Blog Action Day

I just found out that today if Blog Action Day. It's a day for everyone to post about environmental issues to raise awareness. Emiko and Sabbath both posted things that they do to help with the environment. They have given me some great ideas of more things I can do.

• Since Barry was a vegetarian for so long, we still eat lots of vegetarian meals.
• I reuse plastic grocery bags at the store (but I might invest in some canvas bags).
• During the winter, we rarely turn on the heat. We just load up on blankets and snuggle.
• I use cloth pads and sea sponges for that time of the month.
• Recycle and reuse items. Rieser's containers make great tupperware!

Business as Usual

Not much is going on, but it's been a while, so I thought I'd give you an update.
I've been watching this great show lately. I think you'd like it. It's Veronica Mars. They did 3 seasons and I'm watching the first one now. It's about this girl, Veronica, that's a junior in high school. She's the daughter of a private investigator. He used to be Sheriff, but then there was a botched homicide investigation and he got booted from office. But, the homicide wasn't really botched, it was set up. I'm not quite sure why yet. It's got great humor and it's very witty. Kinda like Gilmore Girls but solving crimes. Hmmmm....like CSI meets Gilmore Girls. Fantastic!
Barry started a blog too. He's been commenting on mine. Have you noticed? I didn't until he told me!
We went out to an English-style pub last weekend for one of his friend's from ECS's birthday. His name's Jim. Nice guy. Anyway, there was this crazy guy running around in too tight pants singing and dancing to the music that was playing (please note it was a jukebox, not a live band). He was pretty hilarious....from a distance. The group I was with eventually talked to him and brought him to the table. Not as entertaining up close when you're sober. He started telling me about his lady troubles. At least I think that's what he was telling me. He had a really strong accent. Later on in the night, he came up behind me and started rubbing his butt on my back (I was sitting). The conversation went as follows:
Me: I hope that thing's clean.
Him (in a drunk, barely understandable irish accent): What do you think I did? Put a dildo on me ass and dunked it in a toilet?
Did I mention he mimed that part out? Yeah. He mimed that part out.

Stew Update

My stew was freakin' fantastic! It came out perfectly! The only thing I might do different next time is add a bit more potatoes and maybe some stock (since I'm adding extra potatoes). It wasn't very stew-like. It was drier than I had expected. We ate it with a fork, but it was great. The meat was moist and tender, the veggies flavorful. My first total success on my Friday-From-Scratch-Dinners! Thank you, Alton Brown, Cooking God!

I Can Make Yarn!

I went to the Puyallup Fair last week with Charles. He works with me at the shop. We saw all of the animals and all of the stuff they sell on TV. I picked up a drop spindle while I was there for super cheap!
I made this:
It took me about 3 days to do. It's not very big, but I'm quite proud of myself!
Here's a picture of my spindle:
And here's the roving that I picked up to make some more:
The new stuff I bought is a lot more slippery than the roving that came with the spindle. I also saw a woman with a spinning wheel made out of pvc pipes and a wheel chair wheel. Neat!

I also made breakfast this morning. I'm quite proud of myself! It's a layer a hash browns, then some cheese, then a mixture of eggs, ham & green onions topped with more cheese. It came out really well.
Now, I'm working on a stew I got from watching Good Eats. I've already got my meat in the oven. Only 5 more hours to go! I hope it comes out okay. I feel confident because my breakfast came out so well. Today, it a good cooking mojo day! (I hope!)

It's Been a While!

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted!
We had a big sale at the shop last week. The 9-9-9 Back Issue Sale. 9th month, 9 days, 9 discounts. It started at 10% off and went up to 90% off on the last day. I think we did pretty good. Rick isn't too happy though. Most people waited until it hit 60% off to start showing up. We were hoping they would start coming in at 40. Then, on the last day, a bunch of people that we've never seen before showed up and grabbed chunks of books. They didn't even really look at them. We also had a few regulars get greedy and buying multiple copies of things "because they were so cheap." If it's so cheap that you're willing to buy 2 copies of an X-Men book, maybe you can buy some of the crap like Spawn that we were hoping to get rid of! We had great sales. Broke records every day even with the huge discounts. It gives us a chance to put in some fresh stock too. I think many people had stopped looking in our back issues previously because it was the same stuff all the time. Like I said, I think it was a success....it may just take a while to convince Rick of that.
We got in a collection of Garbage Pail Kids too. I had Barry whip this up for me:
It used to say "Knittin' Brittany." He did a great job!
Not much else going on. Amy (Barry's sister) is going to have her baby today. She's been having complications so they're going to C-section. We just mailed out her baby stuff today. Just in time!
Hoping you're having fun in the land where ALL chocolate cake is German!

Some Completed Projects

I just wanted to show off some completed projects.
First, I have Amy's (Barry's sister) baby gift.
It's a crocheted stuffed bear, baby hat and blanket. They are all made from baby acrylic yarn. The bear was super hard. The first row of crocheting is always the hardest and this whole thing was made so that it was like doing the first row throughout the whole thing. This bear is truly one of a kind since I won't be making another.














Next is a baby hat, booties and mittens.
These items are for a girl in my knitting group. She quit her day job to dye yarn for a living. Here's her website: A Swell Yarn Shop. This is some of her work. She has a show coming up in late September (or early October) and she needed some knitted samples.

Sick, Sick, Sick

I've been sick these past couple of days. I think I had mild food poisoning Monday from a Mexican microwave meal. Tuesday, I had stomach pains and kidney pains. I thought I had appendicitis. There's a thing where the doctors press on your abdomen in a certain spot and it hurts really bad if you have it. I tried it and it hurt! The earliest they could squeeze me in was 4. By that time, most of the pain had gone and I was feeling better. I figured better safe than sorry though. I just have a minor bladder infection. I think the abdominal pain was left over from having nothing to eat on Monday except ginger ale, saltines, pepto bismol and water. I was so happy that after my appointment, I got Arby's and wolfed down a sandwich. My tummy hurts again. Maybe I should have started out with soup.
The rest of this week, I've just been headache-y, tired and my tummy kind of queasy. I still haven't gotten back my full appetite. I ate 2 pieces of toast for breakfast and I'm stuffed! I did sleep a lot last night though. I went to bed at 8 and got up at 7. I don't have a headache, so it must have helped.
It turns out that Barry was trying to kill me. He filled our water at the hand pump that was at the camp site. We brought the jug home and when I started feeling sick, all I drank was water. Tainted water! I don't really know if the water was tainted, but since I've been drinking real bottled water, I've gotten better.
I've been working on this crazy pair of socks. Eunny Jang's Entrelac Socks. Insanity! First, the socks are made for someone with long, skinny feet. I have short fat feet. The entrelac technique is so complicated, I have no idea how to modify it for size. I'm hoping that a larger needle will widen the sock and maybe I'll just stop a few blocks short on my foot. I hope it'll work. It's taken me 2 days just to do the freaking toe!
Amanda let me borrow her Cardcaptor Sakura DVDs. It's been really fun. I watched a few episodes when they were playing it on TV. It's nice to start at the beginning. Unfortunately, it's subtitles only. I don't mind subtitles so much, it just makes knitting harder! ;D

What I Did This Summer

Barry and I just got back from our trip to Greybull, Wyoming. We met my parents there and camped at a KOA. I don't have the pictures yet, but when I do, I'll add them.

Day 1 - Saturday
We left at 8 in the morning for Yellowstone National Park. We got stopped by a car fire just outside of Spokane. We were less than a quarter of a mile from it. It held us up for about 45 minutes. No one was hurt. It did start a small brush fire, but it looked like it was under control by the time we passed it.
That night, we got to Bozeman. It's a town just to the north of Yellowstone and I guess a great spot to stay if you're going there. We went to 8 out of 12 of the hotels in town trying to get a room. The last one we went to was charging almost $200 for one night! We said screw that and stayed at a KOA. We went to Fudruckers for dinner. I feel bad because we got there 1/2 an hour before closing and they had already cleaned everything up. They were super nice about it though, so we gave them a big tip.

Day 2 - Sunday
We ate breakfast at a local place. I had the best Sausage Gravy and Biscuits this side of the Mississippi! They served the sausage in one piece and it was huge! The biscuits just fell apart they were so fluffy. Yummy!
Then we headed into Yellowstone. It was a beautiful drive. Lots of mountains, trees and a huge river. We saw a few groups doing whitewater rafting as we drove past. Once we got into the part, almost immediately, the back-ups started. People were stopping all over the place to take pictures of deer. Who hasn't seen deer before? Big whoop! So, we passed those people and then we saw a buffalo. Barry and I got out and took some pictures of it. From a safe distance of course. We laughed at the people that stopped to look at stupid deer. We also saw some moose and a bear.
As we went through we stopped a lot at the hot springs stuff. We saw Paint Pots, colorful pools and steam rising from the ground.
Of course we stopped at Old Faithful. When we got there, we had about 1/2 an hour until it was time for it to blow. The weather didn't look very friendly. It was cloudy and there was thunder in the distance. A ranger started going around and suggested that everyone take cover. We decided to sit in the rain. A bunch of people went under the trees (which was worse than just sitting out on a bench) and others started putting up umbrellas (we moved far away from them). "Gee, there's a lighting storm coming, think I'll pull out my trusty lightning rod!" The lightning struck pretty close, but we held our ground! We weren't going to miss this! We got rained on and hailed on and eventually the geyser went off. Totally worth it!
After Old Faithful, we had to hurry to make sure we got to the campground before dark. We got there around 7ish and got set up alright. The people there were really nice and had 2 cute boxer puppies.

Day 3 - Monday
We went to a place in middle of the desert with dinosaur tracks. They were pretty cool. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see them. They just blended right in with all of the ripples in the rock. They were created by dinosaurs walking in mud and then the mud drying and more mud forming on top of it. We were able to see the big tracks though. There were supposed to be small ones too, but we couldn't see them through all the ripples.
Then we went to Shell Falls. It was a long winding drive up steep cliffs. They were very pretty.
On our way back, we stopped by a place called Dirty Annies. I had a ginormous burrito.

Day 4 - Tuesday
We went to Thermopolis to The Wyoming Dinosaur Center and Dig Sites. We took a tour of the dig site. We saw an allosaurus feeding ground and they had left the bones in the ground to show where everything was at. Then we checked out their museum and got some souvenirs.
After that we went to Star Plunge Hot Springs Water Park. There were 3 pools, one indoor and 2 outdoor, 3 water slides, 2 hot tubs and a steam room. The indoor pool was built in 1900 and they've added the other stuff around it. They just pumped in water from the hot springs. The water was a little smelly and cloudy, but it felt really good. I went on 2 of the slides, Barry went on all 3. We tried to go into the steam room, but the smell was really strong in there, it was too hot and my glasses fogged up.

Day 5 - Wednesday
I talked my parents into to going to Yellowstone. We saw more buffalo. Herds of buffalo! We checked out the Natural Bridge. Pop stayed with the car because he was having a hard time breathing and left his inhaler behind. It took us about 1/2 and hour to walk there. We even saw a really old guy with an oxygen tank! When we got there, we saw a marmot. The natural bridge was okay. Not as impressive as the one in Virginia. When we got back, we took a short cut and almost ran into a buffalo.
We saw Old Faithful again, this time under sunny skies. We stopped at some more of the hot springs stuff.
We came back to a wet tent! It had rained while we were gone. We had left the "rain shield" off of our tent, so the top was just netting. Our sleeping bags, air mattress, pillows and some clothes got soaked. Luckily, the mattress held most of the water, so the bottom of our tent didn't get wet at all. The KOA had laundry rooms, so we dried our sleeping bags and pillows. It was kind of nice sleeping in a warm sleeping bag.

Day 6 - Thursday
Barry and I went to Cody and left my parents behind in Greybull. We checked out the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. They showed us a map and pointed out the five museums. I thought they were just trying to make is seem big, but really, it was 5 museums in one big place. We went to all 5 of them. The guns museum was massive! The Buffalo Bill part was interesting and had all kinds of neat stuff.
After that we ate at the Irma Hotel (it's been around since 1902 and is named after Buffalo Bill's daughter). It was really yummy! It was a beautiful place and everyone was really nice.
Then we wandered around town and checked out the shops. We were mostly killing time until the gunfight started. That's right, a gunfight! They do it 6 nights a week all through the summer. It was really cool! It wasn't all super serious. There were some great jokes! It had Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, Calamity Jane and Butch Cassidy. Very fun!

Day 7 - Friday
The drive home was uneventful. We left at 8am and got home at 930pm.

What kind of yarn am I?

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Shetland Wool. You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a little on the harsh side. Though you look delicate you are tough as nails and prone to intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you are widely respected and even revered.
Take this quiz!








Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

No go....

Sadly, things didn't work out with the townhouse. The seller's bank has jerked us around for almost 3 weeks now. They haven't decided whether they accepted our offer or not. I don't understand why it takes more than 3 weeks to make a decision. Now, all this week, the seller's realtor hasn't been returning our realtor's calls. So we said, screw you! We're not waiting anymore, we're telling YOU no!
So, we've decided that perhaps it's best to wait a year. We'll sign another year lease with the place we live now and take that time to pay off our credit cards. Even if it doesn't increase the amount the bank will give us, it will increase the amount of money we have left over after paying our mortgage when we get one.
At first, I was relieved. Now, I feel sad. No more looking at people's houses. We saw a few places that were definitely very bachelor. I'm talking weight-lifting equipment, protein shakes, porn not hidden very well and even a tanning bed. Yes, a tanning bed. I wish I'd brought a camera.

Hooray for Me, Broad Street!

Pattern: Glove - Hooray for Me Gloves!
Mitten - basic math from Broad Street Mittens
Yarn: Schaefer Yarn Anne (60% Merino Wool Superwash, 25% Mohair, 15% Nylon)
Needle Size: US 3






I promise the other glove is done, it was busy taking pictures of the other one!
The actual hand part and the glove part were surprisingly easy. The fingers drove me nuts though. I used double knitting, but I kept dropping stitches and would have to start the finger over. They are awesomely warm! I wear them when I work. The boss keeps the heat low and we call the computer area "The Cold Spot" because it always seems to be freezing there no matter what the temperature is elsewhere. I'll be sad when it gets too warm to wear them.
-Paula

And the Waiting Continues...

So, I guess the bank needs more time to review our offer. We gave them an additional 14 days. I'm kinda mad at myself for letting them do that to us. I think they are holding out, hoping that someone else will give them a better offer. Grr...

House Hunting

Barry and I started house hunting this weekend and ended up putting an offer on this one townhouse that we found.



While the carpet looks a nice, neutral beige-y color, it is not. It is 70s style orange shag carpet. Blech! It'll be a lot of work (there are popcorn ceilings, double blech), but I like the place.
We're pretty excited. There was already an offer on the place, so we gave them their asking price and all we asked for that wasn't already included was the fridge. It turns out it was a default, so the price is low. A place just went up a few doors down for $181,000. So I think we're getting a pretty good price. Now, we need to come up with closing costs which is kind of freaking me out.
The seller accepted our offer and now, his bank has to review the offer. Hopefully they accept it!

Hell Week

This past week I've had problems with my ear. It's been congested and hurt from all of the pressure built up in it. I ended up having vertigo every day for 5 days. It would last maybe an hour or two and it was terrible! I went to the doctor and he said I was treating it correctly (taking Sudafed decongestant). I was more worried about the dizziness than the pressure. He gave me some heavy duty stuff that didn't really do much. Thursday was the last one I had.
For my birthday, Jennifer sent me a glasses tray (so I don't forget where I put them. It's bright yellow!) and yummies and $28 (27 + 1 to grow on). I decided that I'm finally going to get a yarn ball winder. I've got some yarn that I dyed a few weeks ago but have been waiting to roll it into a ball. So, we went to Joann's; they didn't have it. We went to Renaissance Yarns; they were closed. Barry tried Renaissance the next day for me since I had to work and they were out. They won't have any for a few weeks! The world is against me I tell you! I think I might take a trip to Tacoma this weekend to Lamb's Ear. Hopefully they'll have one. Now, if I can just keep from spending that money!