Dearest Jenn

Rascal: Climber of Ladders & Eater of Frogs

2008-08-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

Today, Barry and I had to put our friend, Rascal, to sleep. He was 17 years old and his health was failing.
I got Rascal when he "followed me home" at just a few weeks old when I was 11. I say "followed" as in I found a litter of kittens near a friends house and I wanted this one. I knew if I told my parents that I knew where he came from and that he had a mom, they wouldn't let me keep him.
Of course, they objected. I named him Kit and my mom tried to give him away at a yardsale. Luckily for me, no one picked him up. A few days later, we had to take him to the vet. He was so anemic from all of the fleas that he just fell over when we touched him. After spending "a large fortune" (probably about $50), my mom decided we should keep him.
He lived with me and my parents and when I moved out, he stayed with them. When they moved to Minnesota, he came to live with Barry and me. He liked to escape too much and as my mom put it "She didn't want to have to shoot some dog for eating her cat." So, he stayed with us.

He came with us as we crossed the country and met some new cats (which he tolerated and sometimes whooped some butt!).
It was hard to see him go and he will be missed very much.
It was a hard decision to make, but we feel it was the right thing to do. He lived a long and happy life and didn't deserve to suffer. We went into it not knowing as much as we should have. If you have a pet, please read the below website to be prepared should this happen to you and your friend.
http://www.specialneedspets.org/euthanasia.htm

But I Don't Even Play Tennis!

2008-04-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

So, I think I've got a mild case of Tennis Elbow. I've been having some pain in my elbow joint and a little down my arm. I think it's from too much knitting. So, I have to take a break or maybe learn a new method. A new sleeping position would be good too. I tend to sleep on my tummy with my arm under my boobs (my theory when I was a teenager that sleeping on them would make them smaller, so I slept on my arm so I wouldn't squish them, now it's just habit). I've also been having some pains in my pointer finger as well. I have dubbed it Mouse Finger. It's a condition that comes from too much mouse clicking (and knitting). Excessive use of the pointer knuckle.
I did start my Couch to 5k this morning. I got up at 8am and did a 30 minute fast walk. I was reading Barry's Runners Magazine (I don't know why he gets it; he can't even get his sorry ass up to walk with me) and they said that if you are not active, you should start with a couple of weeks of walking. I figure since I'm going from totally sedentary to active, I should really ease into it. I also take any and every opportunity to procrastinate. I'm really proud of myself though. I went out even though it was raining and now that I'm inside, showered and fed, the sun comes out. Bastard! Overall it was nice. Where I was walking were lots of birds and I even saw a bunny. There were also a lot of slugs. A ton of slugs! Mostly baby slugs which are even grosser because they look like maggots when they're that tiny. And they're nasty to step on. I tried to avoid them, but I did step on one. Blech! How am I going to avoid them when I start moving faster? Maybe I need to start bringing some salt with me and throw it ahead of me on the trail.
I also got some plants started this weekend. I got a window box planter for my balcony. I planted a window box roma tomato plant, mint, oregano, and parsley. I hope they do well. I'm afraid I may have planted too many plants in too small of a container. If so, I wouldn't mind ditching the oregano. I had buyer's remorse just after leaving the store with it. I'm not sure what I'll do with it. Lots of recipes ask for dried oregano, but not many ask for fresh. We'll see how it turns out. It's been 2 days now after planting them and they haven't died, so I take that as a good sign.

Radio Silence

2008-04-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a really long time since my last post! Things have been really hectic lately. Barry and I bought a condo in Federal Way. It's great! It's only a little over a mile to work and when the weather gets nicer, I'll be walking to work. It took us a while to move in, but we've got most everything unpacked now. We went out last night and picked up some curtain rods. I've decided that I don't want any blinds at all. I hate blinds. So, we'll have some sheer white curtains under our regular light blocking curtains. That way, we get light AND privacy. We got a Lowe's gift card from our seller to buy stuff for the place and we used that to pick up our stuff. We were going to pick up curtains too, but they wanted $13 for 1 sheer panel (each window needs 2) and $20-$30 for 1 curtain panel. Not only were they expensive, they were ugly. There were a couple that I liked and could have tolerated, but Barry hated those. I know that since it was on a gift card, it's free anyway, but I still can't help but think it's a rip off. I can get the very same sheer panels at Big Lots for $5 a panel. I'd rather spend my own money on that and the "free" money on something else.
Also, I got a cool spinning wheel a couple of months ago. I've been learning how to use it and I think I'm getting pretty good at it. Check it out:

The girl I bought it from says it's from the 1890s. I'm kind of doubtful of that. It works and that's all that matters to me.
Everyone is talking about gardening lately. It makes me wish I had some land to grow stuff. But, since I don't I just the Whistling Train Farm CSA. I'll be getting farm fresh vegetables every week from them. I can't wait for it to start. I think that it'll encourage me to eat more fresh vegetables. They also have U-Pick flowers available for most of the season and that would be a nice little touch to have some fresh flowers in the house every week.

Candidate Calculator

2008-02-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

Someone sent this to me at work today and I thought it was pretty cool.
2008 Candidate Calculator.
I was at 92% for Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel and at 68% for Hillary and Obama.
I also learned about FairTax which I have never heard of before. It takes away income tax and replaces it with a nationwide 25% sales tax. So, you're tax on what you SPEND not on what you earn. I think that's great! All those billionaires with their million dollar yachts paying 23% on taxes for that. I feel that too many rich people can get around paying income taxes by paying high priced lawyers and accounts to get around it. I do think there should be some kind of program for people that earn under a certain amount to purchase NECESSITIES tax free (food, clothing & medication).
I doubt it'll ever happen, but I think it's a great idea.

Happy Valentimes!!!

2008-02-15T09:55:00.000-08:00

How long have you been together? 8 years

How long did you date? We started dating on 6/26/99, moved in together a year later, got married 9/10/06.

How old is he? 29 in May

Who eats more? He eats more. He's freakin' 6' 4"!

Who said “I love you” first? Barry did.

Who is taller? He's exactly 1 foot taller than me.

Who is smarter? I am by a little bit.

Who does the laundry? We each do our own.

Who does the dishes? We share. He claims he does them all the time, but I do them on Friday every week.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do.

Who pays the bills? I do. I'm the saver and he's the spender.

Who mows the lawn? There's no lawn!

Who cooks dinner? We usually do our own, but that's because we mostly do tv dinners and get home at different times. We need to get into cooking real food more.

Who is more stubborn? Barry's more stubborn.

Who kissed who first? Barry kissed me first.

Who asked who out? I guess I did. It wasn't really a date, it was more like, "Hey, there's a guy that likes the same kind of music I do, I should invite him to a show." Then we go to know each other better and he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Who proposed? Barry did (after I told him we were getting married).

Who is more sensitive? I'm not sure. He's definitely more sensitive than most guys, but I cry at arthritis commercials.

Who has more friends? Me.

Who has more siblings? Barry. He's got 5, I've got 0.

Who are you tagging? Barry

Just so you know, I did not spell my title incorrectly. There was an episode of 30 Rock last year where Rachel Dratch played a drunk Russian prostitute and she kept yelling "Happy Valentimes!" to everyone. A great show! I highly recommend it!

Got Our Foot in the Door!

2008-02-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

Barry and I put in an offer on a condo and it was accepted! We had the inspection on Saturday and everything was pretty cool. We have to install some GFI outlets and probably get a new water heater, but it's nothing we can't handle.
I'm really exhausted right now, so I'm not going to write a lot, but I will leave a link to pictures of the new place!
Our House, In the Middle of Our Street!

In the Year 2525....

2008-01-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

So I spent all day Friday watching Cleopatra 2525. I know, hokey late night sci-fi, but Gina Torres from Firefly is in it!
Funny story about that! I get up in middle of the night, possibly early Friday morning (3am) to go potty and Barry is out in the living room watching TV. I usually don't put on my glasses for my midnight potty run since I already know where everything is. After I'm done, I decide to visit Barry for a couple of minutes before heading back to bed. He's watching Cleopatra 2525 (which I didn't care to watch). Well, one of the characters says something and I recognize her voice. "Is that Zoe?!" (Gina Torres' character in Firefly) Barry said "Holy crap! I watched this show for at least 15 minutes trying to figure out where I knew her from and had to go look it up on IMDB to find out who she was."
I got sidetracked. Back to what I was saying. All day watching this show....I was also trying to work on a new pair of socks while I watched it. I think I ripped them out at least 5 times that day. My gauge was too small, so I had to adjust the numbers and ended up making them too big, then too small, then I twisted stuff, then I put them on my needles wrong. Arg! I put them aside and got started on another pillow. Here's a picture of the first one I made using the yarn that Rick got me for my birthday:

It's nice and soft! Suede yarn. I'm making my other one out of the brown/orange color combos and a little bit smaller so it fits the pillow form better.
Also from watching Cleopatra 2525, I found my new haircut!
I think it'll look great with glasses too. That's a problem I have with looking for a new haircut. You never know how it'll look with glasses. Sometimes glasses can throw off the whole haircut. Anyway, I'll dying it with bright reds and oranges.

A Blog Award! I'd like to thank....

2008-01-26T07:27:00.000-08:00

All the little people that helped me get where I am today, especially the
Chuck the Squirrel that runs in a wheel inside my computer to keep it going.
Sabbath gave me a "You Make My Day" Award and she was nominated by Rhonda who was nominated by Suna and so on and so on. So, I'll shall continue the chain so no bad luck befalls me (although no threats were actually made).
I'd like to nominate Liberty. I love the pictures she puts on her site! They are so professional looking. She offers a lot of tutorials, tips and ideas for me to steal, umm....I mean use.
I'll also nominate Stitchy McYarnpants. She doesn't post nearly as often as I do (which should say how often she doesn't post more than she does post), but they are always hilarious. My current fave is "Jaw-Breaking News." It had me giggle-snorting the whole time I was reading it!
One of the things that Sabbath pointed out was that I've promised to write in this blog weekly and I haven't been doing a very good job of it (for the record, she didn't say that last part, I did). I don't write often because nothing very exciting happens very often. So, I'm going to try to focus on some of my random thoughts and ideas as well. Maybe keep a little notebook with me to keep track of them through out the day. The point being that things don't have to be exciting (like whacking my head on a toilet) to be blogged, but maybe just interesting.

Birthday Booty!

2008-01-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

So, Sunday was my birthday and I got all kinds of goodies!
First, Jenn sent me a gift certificate for Amazon.com and I ordered the new Cat Bordhi sock book. Then I ran off to Kinko's and had it spiral bound. It was only $5 to have it bound. It's nice! It lays flat

and I can flip the book back on itself.Also from Jenn, I got an awesome birthday package. It has yarn, a knitting book, bath stuff, Germany goodies, the Golden Compass books and a small package of tissues.

I was setting up my little display in the shop yesterday to take a picture of it and got a comment on how nicely laid out it is. Now, as I'm posting, I notice that the tissues are upside down. Grr.

From Rick, I got suede yarn and some rainbow yarn. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rainbow yarn, but I'm going to crochet some decorative pillow covers with the suede. I've already got my pillow forms, I just need to decide on a pattern to use.

He also got me lots of yummy goodies. The sipping chocolate was interesting. You heat up 1/3 of a cup of milk and add 3 TABLESPOONS of the chocolate. It was a little too thick for my tastes. Luckily, there's instructions on how to use it to make hot chocolate.

Christmas Booty!

2008-01-15T17:29:00.001-08:00

I finally got some pictures taken of my fancy new coat, but you have to read about the trials and tribulations of buying that coat before you get to see any pictures! Here it goes...
Barry got me a gift certificate to Burlington Coat Factory for $50. I desperately needed a new coat since mine had a HUGE hole in the pocket. We get there and there is a ginormous selection of coats. It wouldn't be the Burlington Coat Factory if there were any less coats. So, their "organization" of the coats makes no sense to me if there was a system. I wanted a pea coat. I've always wanted a pea coat but they are always to expensive. We're there for maybe 1/2 an hour and I'm starting to get ready to give up. Everything is either too big or too expensive. I have little patience for shopping for clothes especially when there's no order. Barry finally pulls one out that looks promising. I try it on....It's perfect! We start looking for the price tag and there isn't one. I head up to the front to find out the price while Barry looks for a similar coat. I'm convinced that the perfect coat will be at least $100. I get up there and it's $49.99! The woman asks if I'd like to buy it now and I say yes! Shopping hell is done and I have an awesome coat! I signal Barry to come up to the front since he has my wallet with the extra money for tax. She rings it up and it's only $45! It was on sale for $39.99! Sweet! I've already given her my gift card and she hands it back to me just as Barry arrives with my wallet and poopy old coat. And what does he say? Not "I'm so happy you got the coat you wanted." He said "Why did you buy it already? I found another one I want you to try on." He tells me you never buy the first one you try. Hello! I tried on at least 5 or 6 coats! So, we leave the shop, bubble popped. He apologizes, and we go back in to spend the rest of the gift card since we never shop at Burlington Coat Factory. We picked up a cute welcome mat that says "The Party Starts Here!"

Boring poseCute pose

Badass pose

Inside pockets!

And reversible!

I also got a purse that my mom made me. When I was a teenager, I loved yin yangs!
There are two pockets where the two colors meet.
She included a note with it that said:

Paula,
I hope you like this purse. It is called a Yin-Yang Purse.
I made it because I know you like the Yin-Yang symbol.
If you don't like it, that's okay.
You only have to use it when I come to visit.
Just be grateful that it is not a pink bunny suit.
Have a great Christmas.
Love,
Mom

I'm the Eric of This Party!

2008-01-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

I guess I should first explain what I mean by the title of this post. Eric is Barry's sister's (Tammy) long time boyfriend. He often gets hurt doing things like playing on a pogo stick, swinging from tree swings and walking down the sidewalk. He broke his ankle on that last one. He bounces back just fine. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, just less than graceful at times.
So, last night Barry and I went to Tammy's house in Seattle for New Years. Barry was pretty drunk and I was standing on his feet while he was walking around. So, he needs to use the bathroom and I claim "Well, I guess I'm coming with you then!" We get to the bathroom and there's a cat in front of us. He's tries to step over the cat but only succeeds in tripping and falling onto me. I fall backwards and land on the toilet and Barry lands on top of me. I whacked my head on the tank of the toilet and smacked my lower back on the toilet seat and Barry squashed me there. So he feels really bad for what he did (but now that he's sober, he claims it was ALL my fault. Jerk.) and starts hugging me.
"Ow! Don't hug me, I hurt my back!"
He pets my head (which I usually love).
"Ow! Don't touch my head, it hurts!"
He rubs my back.
"Ow! That's where I hurt my back!"
Hugs me again, resting his chin on my head (Thus pressing on my hurt back and touching my shiny new goose egg).
"Ow! Quit touching me!"
So, since Eric didn't get hurt last night, I declare myself Eric of that party!
I'm doing alright considering. I've got a nice bump on my head and my back's a little sore. I think its just some bruising and pulled muscles. I should be good in a couple of days.
Barry woke up this morning wondering why his ribs hurt. I told him it's because he crushed me last night. He thinks it's because I was punching him because he was snoring too much.
I didn't get a picture of my new coat yet. I'm hoping I'll get some pictures up this weekend of my gifts.

An Informative Day

2007-12-14T16:32:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-16T08:56:00.001-08:00

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!

2007-11-09T16:56:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

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....

2007-10-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-09-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-09-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-02T08:14:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-08-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

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.
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No go....

2007-03-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-02-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-02-16T12:13:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-13T08:47:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-29T09:12:00.000-08:00

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!

First Post

2006-12-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

Life:
This week has been a hectic one. We lost power last weekend, which is when I planned to get all of my Christmas shopping done. I got Barry to do a bunch of shopping for me on Saturday because I had to work. I'm going shopping for him today.
I've decided that if Barry and I have a kid, it's name will have to begin with a J. That way, we could be PB & J! Dorky, I know. But Jedi Currey! What an awesome name! If I were a really big Star Wars geek, but I've gotten some laughs at the shop.

Reading:
I started reading the first Dragonlance book. It's been pretty good. I might continue with the rest of the series.
Right now I'm hoping that I'll get the rest of the Dark Tower books for Christmas. I need to finish the last 3 before February. Marvel is coming out with a Dark Tower prequel. I'm really excited about it. This book will hopefully bring in a lot of people who've never read comics before.

Watching:
I'm catching up on some Gilmore Girls today. Our TIVO didn't recognize the new channel when it switched over, so we missed the first 4 episodes of the season.
We also have Disc 3 of Deadwood Season 1. I hate westerns, but this series is great! I've been trying to be patient waiting for Barry to watch them together, but I might just watch them without him.

Knitting:
I'm working on Rick's Christmas socks. I don't have enough yarn to finish them, so they will be late. Rick got me some beautiful sock yarn for Christmas. Can't wait to use it!
I'm also making good progress on a scarf for myself.
I've got a ton of projects I want to get started on, but I'm trying to limit myself to 2 at a time.