...and they eat us and they take our women...

I saw a movie this weekend. From the above title you should be able to figure out which one. I was looking forward to it. It was okay.

Also, I have recently seen Monsters. After being told it was being released on a certain date, and then a later certain date, and then a third later certain date, my brother found it on pay for view, so we ended up watching it at his house. You would think that watching it at someone's house would be really cheap, but it was eight dollars. This is not cheap to me, since I usually watch new movies at a nearby theater for less than four dollars matinee, and more often than that just wait til things are at the dollar theater. Anyway, after all that waiting and wanting to see the thing, I was a bit disappointed. I liked the feel and look of it, and I don't have a problem with the low budget and such, it's just that after sitting through the whole movie I know just about as much as I did from watching the previews. Which is, mostly nothing, except that six years ago we sent a probe to get samples of some lifeform, then the probe crashed, leaving the lifeform to grow on Earth, mostly in the northern half of Mexico. There were hardly any action scenes in the movie, but for all of that time talking, no one said anything. No one said anything interesting about the creatures, and no one said anything interesting about themselves. We have your average jerk guy who apparently doesn't know where babies come from til he ends up with a now six year old son, except that he still hasn't figured out what not to do cause he's still sleeping with random people. And we have daughter of the jerk's boss, trying to get home after doing we don't know what in we don't know where and we don't know why. And they wait til the last possible day, have their boat tickets stolen, and have to get home by land through this area where the creatures live. And that's pretty much it.

Also on the movie front we have Harry Potter coming up. But I can't talk about that really, cause it hasn't happened yet. I should have made a new hat last year, but I didn't, and now I'm just getting started on it, and I need it done by Thursday.

Right.

Okay, so I was all in pain with the mysterious back/hip problem. That pretty much lasted a whole month. I never went to a doctor, just kind of waited for it to go away, which it finally seems to have done. Now I just feel rather blah bad, not like really bad, which I guess is mostly normal for me now.

And then I finally went to the dentist. I had my annual checkup (which I have missed for like the last four or five years) back in August, at which time I was told what needed to be done and the estimated cost for all of that. I would need at least three more appointments, and several hundred dollars for the first two, assuming that all went well and the insurance paid half and all of that. So, in August, I did not have several hundred dollars twice over, much less four times over if the insurance did not pay, which was not very likely but something I might have to be prepared for just in case. So I did not make those appointments in August, cause I said that I would have to talk to my husband and find out when we would have the money, and when we would be in town, and so forth. My husband was also supposed to have had his "annual" checkup that day in August, but his schedule was changed and he went out of town, and so he was not there for a while to have this discussion about the money. So I told the lady at the dentist office that I would call her back, but then I did not call her back for a very long time. First, we went out of town a lot, for most of September. And then my first week home I had a lot to do and went to visit Buddy and the baby. And then the week after that, my back hurt, and I was in such pain that I could only rest in certain positions, and the dentist office chair was not one of those positions. So I did not think that I could stand being in the dentist chair long enough for him to get any work done, so I continued to put it off until after Halloween. When a week went by without serious back pain, I finally called the dentist office to make an appointment, and they said that they could see me the following Monday. I should have scheduled the crown first and gotten it over with, but I didn't. I've had two of those before, and I was in pain the whole time between getting the temporary crown and getting the permanent crown. So I just needed a bit more time to get mentally used to the idea, and also I had to schedule it so that if I were in serious pain for the whole two weeks before getting the permanent crown that I wouldn't be missing anything important. They were wondering if I could come in that Thursday.

Two weeks from that Thursday would be Thanksgiving.

I'm thinking that they would not be open on Thanksgiving, even if I wanted to do that. I didn't want to have to wait more than the two weeks, and even if they could squeeze me in that Friday, I rather think that I'll be out shopping and such on Black Friday. Not that I told them that. I'm not going to tell my dentist that saving some money on clothes and getting cheap DVDs is more important that fixing my teeth. But they did seem to understand wanting to get it all over with before Thanksgiving. So they asked if I would mind coming in that Wednesday.

I wouldn't mind that at all, I'm just surprised that they could get me in so soon. If they had suggested coming back in the next day, that might have been a problem, since I didn't get to eat much solid food on Monday after breakfast, and doing the same thing again and not eating on Tuesday would not have been fun. But having the day between to recover was okay, as long as they were going to be open two weeks later to do the permanent crown. They said that they would be, so I made the appointment.

While they were working on my teeth they found another cavity, and I said that they should go ahead and deal with that since they've already given me pain medication, so that cost another hundred bucks. But we are still a bit under a thousand dollars, and the checks did not bounce, and so far the insurance hasn't refused to pay for anything.

Oh, I forgot about Halloween. I spent most of the Thursday or Friday before making finger shaped cookies for the party, which was that Saturday. And then at the party I spent a couple of hours handing out cookies and trying to get people to guess that I was Weena. I was surprised how many of them could not guess, and I stayed in character and did not tell them. And then I was going to get really strange about half an or an hour before the costume contest, only I didn't correctly remember when that was, so then I'm rushing around trying to get one of my props ready, and I didn't get to do all that I meant to. So no one saw me eating the Morlock foot till the contest. Get it? In an alternate timeline, the Eloi eat the Morlocks.

I guess just too many people there were not familiar with The Time Machine, so I guess they just didn't get the joke. Maybe they thought that the Eloi were supposed to eat the Morlocks. You would think that people would get it. I mean, there are mundanes that know about The Time Machine and that the Morlocks eat the Eloi. But I just wasn't getting the laughs. So, I ended up winning an honorable mention for the cookies, but I didn't win any awards for the costume contest, other than the sort of joke awards that they hand out later.

So I had fun, but it was also a bit of a disappointment that nobody got it really. And I didn't get to eat much, cause a.) I was busy handing out cookies, and b.) I was trying not to get anything on my very light yellow dress.

So that was Halloween, or at least the night before, and there was nothing to do on Halloween itself or any time near Halloween, as my back was still hurting a bit and I was afraid of going to a haunting house or anything that might make my condition worse. Too late I thought of going to the wax museum, as they are usually very tame, and I'm sure that someone would have let me out early if I was having a problem. So I didn't get to do anything at all this year, other than the party.

And I'm trying to restrain myself with the clearance sale shopping. I've hardly bought anything at all, and half of what I did buy was either for Buddy or the baby.

Other than that, things are mostly just annoying. Like, I can't find my Harry Potter clothes. Or, I can find some things, but I can't find other things, and most of the things that I do find don't fit. But, I'm not quite ready to give up on the idea. I still have my scarves if nothing else works.

Another thing is annoying, which I won't talk about now, except to say that it has been a whole damned freaking month. And I have had enough of it.

Anyway, back to looking through the costumes and working on my hat.

Love the new purse

I may have mentioned that I am not so much what you would call a girly girl. Not that I was ever really called a tomboy either. I didn't like sports enough to be called that. And I am way to old to be called a tomboy now. But, still, compared to the rest of my sex, I don't spend a lot of time shopping for clothes or looking in the mirror or getting my nails done, etc....

At some point, I decided that carrying a purse was too annoying for everyday use. My keys and ID and money could go in my pockets, along with maybe some lip balm, and I was good to go. This did not please my mother, as she could see all this stuff in my pockets, and it did not look lady-like or something. But I find that carrying around a purse is annoying, besides the fact that I might forget and leave my purse somewhere, and a couple of times that I've had my purse stolen. So most of the time I would rather do without one, unless I am trying especially hard to look nice, or I need some stuff that I don't want to carry around in my pockets like a brush and a bunch of medications and extra cosmetics.

So it is sometimes necessary to carry a purse, and I do have one or two. I'm just not often seen carrying them around.

A couple months back I found a purse at a Goodwill. It was black and it had dark purple or plum flowers glued to the top. In my opinion, this was rather tacky. I thought that it would look good with a Harry Potter costume, as at some point I hope to have a hat with black or dark purple flowers on it, and the purse would match the hat, sort of.

I had a look at the purse and found that it was in good shape and had a magnetic clasp. So it wasn't an old purse. It was four dollars, and I decided to buy it.

A bit more than a month ago, I was going to wear some of a witch costume to a Star Trek club meeting. I didn't want to wear the costume all day, as it was rather warm. So I took the costume to change into. And as long as I would eventually be in the costume, I thought that I might as well take the purse too, even though I did not yet have a hat with flowers, I thought the purse still looked good with the witch costume. So money and ID and cell phone and keys and brush and medications and extra cosmetics all went into the new purse, and off I went to the meeting, not yet in costume otherwise.

And then a lot of my friends were saying how much that they liked my new purse, and did I glue the flowers on myself or did it just come that way, etc....

Okay.

I had expected that maybe after I got into costume some of them might say how well the purse went with the costume. But I wasn't in costume yet, I was just in regular clothes. So I thought that was a bit weird.

Maybe they are like my mother, and they hate that I stuff everything in my pockets, and they are just happy that I have a purse. Any purse. Or maybe they are just happy that I decided to act like a girl for a change. I don't know. But it was hard for me to think that they really liked this tacky purse, other than for it's costume potential.

About a week ago I was going to see my mother, so I took the purse to get her opinion.

Mom, do you like my purse?

Um, well, let's see. Not particulary. It's okay. I wouldn't like it for me, but if you like it, I guess it's okay.

So it is not just the coolest purse that you have ever seen?

Um, no....

So I tell her about my friends all liking the purse, and she thought that was funny, and she agreed that they might just be saying that to make me feel better, and that it might not really be a great purse. But she really isn't the expert on such things. Better ask my sister.

So my sister agreed that it was a nice purse, though she did not all go crazy about it like my friends had. But she did say that it was a good purse to have, and not just for costume potential. My mother still thought it a bit on the tacky side, but it was a major improvement over stuffing everything in my pockets.

So I have somehow managed to buy a cool purse on accident, when I was intending to buy something tacky. How did that happen?

Stuff from this weekend

Well, I had been debating whether or not I should make an appearance at the movie theater that my friends were hanging out at. I wasn't up for a long drive and being on my feet all night, but just maybe I could go for an hour or two on Saturday, after I had already driven halfway there to get to something else anyway.

First thing that I did was email three of my other friends who had not yet made an appearance at the theater. Maybe they would like to go there too.

One didn't even return my email. Another didn't return my email, but we had already discussed the situation somewhat. Miss Allergies said that she did not want to go to the theater, not even just to see the other people all dressed up and not dress up herself. Going to the theater would interfere with our usual plans for going to dinner.

Our usual plans of going to dinner are already interfered with, as some of our friends were already committed to being at the theater all evening anyway.

Miss Allergies insisted that people do have to eat, so that maybe they would take a break and go with us.

Well, they might, but they aren't going to drive all the way back and forth from the usual place. Maybe if we pick another restaurant closer to the theater. So we discuss a few places and pick one. The other two guys are easy and will usually go along with where we want to go.

Only after we discuss the idea of taking a break with the people who are committed to being at the theater all night, they insist that they really must be at the theater all night, even during the hour and a half between shows when they aren't really doing much. At that point, Miss Allergies wants to go to the usual place rather than driving all the way to the other restaurant.

So I decide if we are not going to the other restaurant I really don't need to go to dinner. I really do want to hang around at the theater, even if it is just for an hour or so. And hanging around at the theater will only cost me a bit more gas, while going to dinner will cost me more money. If we could have done both that would have been nice, but I don't see being able to do both if we don't go to the other restaurant. So I'm off to the theater.

Except that Miss Allergies is begging me to go to dinner instead. And then while she is trying to talk me into dinner instead, she mentions that she wants to go to the bookstore first.

I don't want to go to the bookstore at all. I spend enough time in that place when I have money, so I don't want to waste any of my time there when I don't have money. I'm off to the theater again. Miss Allergies complains that we never get to see each other anymore.

Well, I am hardly to blame for that, but I don't say so. I've about had it with Miss Allergies.

She thinks it is all about me not having money. She offers to buy me dinner. It is partially about me having no money, but not entirely. And I really do want to go to the theater for a bit. She still wants to go to dinner at the usual place, but she still wants to go to the bookstore first.

I think why don't I just go to the theater now, and then I'll see how I feel about going to dinner afterward. That seems to make everybody happy. I check to make sure that I have their cell phone numbers, and again I am off to the theater.

I actually get out the door this time and really do drive to the theater.

Last month I had all these plans for making new costumes and such, and then decided not to bother with it. If I really want to go, I can wear the old stuff that I wore last month. Only, at about the time that I decide that, I realize I don't know where the old stuff is. As it turns out, I had left it in the car from last month. So I had looked it over and then put it back in the car and added a scarf.

So I get to the theater, and I'm rather late for one show, but I can help out with two others and then leave in an hour. Perfect. I get changed.

Besides our group being dressed as Tonks and Dumbledore and the elder Malfoy and Snape, I see a group of girls who is not part of our group. They have come wearing school uniforms and neck ties and such. And one of them had a toilet seat around her neck, cause she was moaning Myrtle. And there was another girl with that group all dressed in brown with this sort of grass skirt thing around her knees, cause she was a broom. Silly girls.

So that was fun, but I didn't get into costume soon enough to have my picture taken with them.

So I go and change. Now, the nice thing about dressing up for Harry Potter is that you can still wear your glasses, and you can even carry a purse if you want to, and I found one that looked eccentric enough to work. So after an hour or so I called my other friends, who were just then getting to the restaurant. I change out of the skirt but keep the rest of the costume on, and I'm off to the restaurant.

So I get to the restaurant maybe twenty or thirty minutes after they did. So I think that worked out pretty well. Then Miss Allergies still wanted to buy me dinner, which I thought was weird, cause I assumed that she just offered because she thought that I wouldn't go otherwise. After I'm already at the restaurant and starting to order the soup I didn't think that it mattered anymore.

But she still wants to buy me dinner, apparently because she'll taking the others somewhere later this week and I'm not going.

Okay. I'm not sure why I'm not going, but I don't ask. Maybe it is because she thinks that I don't want to waste the gas going to Fort Worth. I don't know. I didn't ask, and I'm not going to.

We stay at the restaurant three hours. We get ready to leave, and again Miss Allergies is going on about how we don't get to spend enough time together anymore.

And whose fault is that? But I don't say anything. But it is weird that she keeps going on like that. And here I am right now, without a job, and I could meet her any Saturday that she wants, and I might even meet her on a weeknight if she would ask. But I already know that she'll never invite anyone to her house (which I know cause we have both said that we never have anyone over) and she won't want to meet me anyplace halfway, and she would never say meet me at the mall or at a fast food place to just have a soda. She has to go only to certain restaurants because of her allergies, etc....

Sunday, I get nothing useful done. I watch Sunday Morning and then spend about three hours watching stuff about Apollo missions. I would have liked to watch The Dish, but I seem to have misplaced it. I thought I knew where most things were before I started cleaning, and now I can't find anything. And we didn't even go to my brother's place as I had already watched Eureka on Hulu Saturday morning, cause I didn't want to hear any of my friends talking about it before I watched it.

Anyway, Sunday started out pleasant enough, but it soon got back to normal. And now it is Monday, and I got up later than usual and haven't done anything. I suspect it will be another day of not doing much, though later I should get to watch True Blood. Today we have to sit here and wait for someone to deliver a computer. That's always fun.

This week would almost be a good time to do some gardening, if I would get up early enough. We expect only low to mid nineties, rather than high nineties and over a hundred. But I probably won't get around to that.

My almost planned day away isn't going to happen tomorrow. And then the husband will go out of town for three days at the end of the week. I should plan what I am going to do before then so I don't waste the time.

A month ago

Last month at about this time I was getting ready to hang out with my friends. I was working on a new witch hat, which was supposed to be for the Harry Potter premiere, but I had also hoped to wear it that Saturday to show off to my friends while we did this goofy thing at one of our usual get-togethers. I didn't get finished with the hat and wore one of my old hats that Saturday, still thinking that I would finish the new hat in plenty of time to wear to the Harry Potter premiere.

And I asked for details on the Harry Potter premiere, but there didn't seem to be any solid plans to do anything specific, other than we were committed to being at a particular theater. No one really seemed very interested in getting an early start getting ready for the thing. We went to dinner or something.

And that same Saturday, I picked up some DVDs that my friend from the great white north wanted, only he hadn't seen any, while around here they were for sale at a discount. So I was supposed to buy the DVDs, and then I would send them to him and he would send me the money for the DVDs and the postage. Before sending them on to him, I was going to watch them, in part to make sure that they weren't damaged, as you can only get refunds or exchanges a week after purchase, and if he found out that they were damaged after I sent them it would be too late to do anything about it.

So it is a month later, and I still haven't sent him the DVDs. I did watch most of them that first week, though to tell the truth the last two disks were more skimmed through than actually watched. They didn't seem to be damaged, though I did notice that they sometimes didn't show the main menu when asked. So not so much damage, more of a glitch, and for all I know it has more to do with my VCR than the DVDs themselves. Anyway, it didn't seem like something that was worth going to exchange for another set, since next set would probably have the same problem (if in fact there was a problem at all and not just a quirk of my VCR), and this set had already been inspected for damage. So I should have just said that the first week that I had them, but I forgot. And now I realize that I have had these things three weeks longer than I planned to, and I just forgot to ask about sending them.

I never finished the new witch hat. I never made any additions or repairs to any of my costumes. I didn't go with my friends to the Harry Potter premiere, and when I went to my local theater, the only part of my costume that I wore was the scarf. I had changed my mind from wanting to go all out and be at the movie theater with my friends all four days to thinking that maybe I just wouldn't go at all.

Okay, so today is the day of one of our usual get-togethers, and afterwards they will be going to that theater. So I'm thinking that I would like to go just this last day, just to see if the decorated the theater and what everyone else is wearing. I shouldn't waste the gas, but I'll be going almost halfway there anyway, so it wouldn't be that much. I am trying to decide if I want to get all dressed up, or if I just want to wear my regular clothes and look around for a little bit.

In either case, some of my friends will want to go to dinner, and I have to decide about that. I shouldn't spend the money. So, should I go with them and just maybe buy a soda, or should I eat with them, or should I make excuses and not go at all?

This has just be the strangest month around here with the money problems and me constantly changing my mind about things.

There is stuff to do, but today I'll just watch Harry Potter instead

I was reading someone else's blog, how she thinks that she is going to feed her family with her new garden. There's a picture of her garden, or some of her soon to be garden anyway. If the picture shows most of it, then it probably is a bit smaller than mine. She is proud of how she used recycled stuff to make the path around the garden to save money. But then most of her garden is raised beds, about half made from bricks that must have cost several hundred dollars, and the other half being made from heavy lumber that I do not think they found in the scrap bin.

In any case, I am wondering if the garden will feed her family. She is in California, while I am in Texas. Maybe in California they are not having this problem with the bees. Or maybe there is just something about my house in particular that the bees do not like. I saw a bee yesterday, but she was out in the field, not in my yard.

A neighbor who usually has a nice garden has mostly given up for the year. Half of his garden has been dug up and made ready for next year. I don't talk to this particular neighbor, so I don't know what happened to the other half of his plants. He has left the tomatoes, and the sweet potatoes aren't ready to be dug up yet, but most everything else is gone.

I tried to grow some more beans, but again there were no sprouts. I think that maybe they did sprout, but the pill bugs ate them before I saw them. This is getting annoying, as there are pill bugs everywhere that I did nothing about, as all the books said that they were harmless and only ate dead plants. Now I will have to find a way to protect new plants from them.

With all the water I give to the garden plants, the grass around the plants has grown tall. We will have to cut it more often. I wish I had money to cover the rest of the yard with stepping stones and such.

Note to self: in the future do not plant turnips and radishes in the same bed. I have trouble telling which is which, and after the rain some of the seeds moved so that they got mixed in together.

While I am not getting anything done in the garden because of the heat, the front part of the house has improved enough for my husband to comment about it.

August will be here soon. I don't look forward to it. I would like to work really hard for a few weeks and then maybe be in a coma for a month or so. It would be nice to skip the entire month and just wake up one day and find that it was already September and time to do fall planting if I'm going to do that.

Later today we will go and watch the Harry Potter movie. I looked at the emails from last night, and there was no mention of the sneak preview that my friends should have gone to. So I'm glad that I decided not to worry about all that. Maybe I will go with them Saturday night, but I won't decide before then. I'll just see how I feel. I would like to see what they do, but I don't really want to get that into it myself. I have cleaning to do, and I shouldn't stop working right when I am starting to see real progress.

The card came from the unemployment place. We were told it would be three eighty a week on weeks that he qualified for a whole week, and it has four hundred dollars. So that is a bit odd. Not enough for two weeks. So did they decide the didn't qualify for a whole second week, or is more coming later. Anyway, it is a bit annoying about it being a card and not a check. I'm not real sure how to get it from that account to the account that we pay our bills from. Though at this rate we may just end up spending the whole four hundred on stuff and not have any left to transfer to the other account. I wonder why they don't just ask for your regular account information and make a direct deposit to that?

The new business experiment will be in about a month. I keep forgetting things that have to be purchased, or things end up costing more than I thought they would. Like we had to go and buy extra ink cartridges and colored paper for the printer, cause we need about a hundred each of a couple of things. For the black and white stuff we might have gone to a copy place, but color copies are still very expensive, which doesn't quite make since if color ink cartridges don't cost more than black ones. Maybe it is just assumed that color copies use more ink. Anyway, we did not use the copy place this time. Maybe next time, if there is a next time. We bought a frame for a poster, but we haven't ordered the poster yet. We have reserved rental equipment for next month. And if the business doesn't go well it will cost at least another two hundred or so in supplies that we are now committed to spend at the end of next month. The four hundred something dollar computer became a six hundred something dollar computer. By the time next month is over we will have spent over twelve hundred dollars on this thing. I am starting to get nervous about it again.

But today I am just going to enjoy watching the movie and then coming home to eat the expensive cheese that we bought yesterday from the surplus store.

Harry Potter premieres next week

Next Wednesday to be exact. There's a midnight showing on Tuesday, and a sneak preview for some of us either Monday or Tuesday. My friends and I have been planning to go in costume to help promote the movie and our club. It will be like the Star Trek premiere back in May.

I'm not going.

Or, at least, I don't think that I'm going. I never got around to finishing the new hat, and I didn't even start on the cape. Not that I don't have plenty of that stuff already, I just thought that another hat would look better, and that a lighter cape would be cooler and better to wear in July in Texas. But still, I have plenty of other stuff to wear, and most of what we are planning is in the evening and indoors, so it wouldn't be terribly hot if I decided to wear the old stuff.

I just don't think I'm going to have any money. The theater is almost an hour away, and would require at least two round trips if I participate at all, and four round trips if I did everything that I had planned. So that would be nearly a tank of gas, and the tank is nearly empty now, and I really don't have the money to waste on a movie.

I would feel really bad about letting everybody down, except, in my opinion I haven't yet commented to doing the thing anyway.

Oh, I'm sure that everyone knows that I had planned on doing it, but back in May when I wanted to get serious about planning this thing and possibly building some props, no one else much seemed to be interested. After all, they were tired from just doing the Star Trek thing, and Harry Potter was months away.

Only now it isn't months away, it is only days away. They are just now getting around to making a final list of who is going to be there and when, and who needs to bring what, etc.... I began to lose interest after no one wanted to do anything in May, and again when not that many people wanted to firm up the plans in June. So now that it is time to do something and it is too late to do anything about it if we don't have enough props just already in our closets...I am thinking that I have more important things to worry about than promoting a movie. Like is that unemployment check ever going to get here, and if my husband goes out of town again in two weeks do I want to go with him, and now that I have a mostly clean dining room do I want to move the appliances around in the kitchen so that I can give that a serious cleaning too.

I have to spend money on important stuff, like food.

Not that we won't go and see the movie, but the two of us can see the movie, probably on opening day, for about seven dollars. It will cost about three times that much for gas (or, that is how much it cost last time, and I'm thinking that it is more now), my husband might not get a free ticket, and then of course if I go spend a lot of time at this theater that isn't nearby I shall have to either buy dinner out with the gang or take a peanut butter sandwich.

Right at the moment, the idea of not going isn't bothering me that much. What is bothering me is that no one seems to have noticed yet that I'm not going.

Well, it's not like I actually announced that I wasn't going. There isn't an official sign-up sheet yet. But I thought by now that they would have either noticed that I hadn't sent an email about it or maybe they would have sent me an email asking what they could borrow for the event. Neither has happened.

I did tell one friend that I probably wouldn't go to anything for a while because of the money situation. Maybe he said something to them.

One more odd thing about the Harry Potter movie is that one of my friends is refusing to see it. She was probably the first person to tell me that I needed to read these books, she has costumes, and she was more into Harry Potter than most people I know (and I know a lot of people who are into this stuff). But apparently the sixth book upset her so much that she nearly didn't read the seventh one.

NO SPOILERS, PLEASE. I have only read the first book for something at school. I like to read books after I have seen the movies.

Anyway, so my friend refuses to go, and I don't think that I should go because of the money situation. Me, with the scarves and the costumes and the year round Halloween decorations all around the house.

I mean, I will still go see it someplace, but not with my friends, and not doing the whole weekend event thing.

I may end up not seeing my friends this week at all, and this is the week that we would normally see each other anyway.

This is just all a bit weird.

Monday Morons--I'm not very organized

A few notes before I get to the post. First, I had originally written this thinking that I would post this on Christmas Eve, but remembered I had something else that I'd rather post. So I am posting this now, without rewriting it, so there are parts that do not quite make sense because I wrote this more than a week ago.

Also, if you need a bit more chocolate or other snacks for tonight, the Christmas stuff at Target is now 75% off. Or, at least, the stores that I've been to in Texas are now having their 75% off clearance sale. I suppose that other areas may have different sales dates. But be aware that the Hickory Farms and Pepperidge Farm products do not scan at the sale price, even though there may be a sale sign on the shelf right in front of the items. To get the sale price, you may have to ask the cashier to ring up the items manually, ask to speak to a manager, and perhaps threaten lawsuits, and you might still not get the items at the sale price. Decide before you shop if it is worth the effort.


Okay, on with the post-------



Earlier I had started a Monday Moron post, but it turned out to be a very long post and I did not get it done in time to post on Monday. So I thought that I'd finish it later and post it the next Monday. Only then I remembered that the next Monday would be Christmas Eve, and I did not want to post such a thing on Christmas Eve.

Then I thought that I didn't want to post a Monday Morons on Christmas Eve at all. Something else came to mind, which would be just as funny but more in a holiday mood.

Due to a certain husband spending all of his time off either blogging or with me at the movie theater, I didn't get to use the computer when I thought of whatever it was I meant to post today. I've forgotten what it was. It just seemed so perfect, but I didn't think that I'd need to be reminded of whatever it was. I didn't write myself a little note saying what I was supposed to blog about.

So whatever today's post was supposed to be, I've forgotten.

So now I am back to Monday Morons, though I've decided that blogging about that other person on Christmas Eve would not be a good thing in the holiday spirit, so I'll blog about myself instead.

If you're a regular reader, you may have noticed that I'm not very organized. I am spending most of my holiday break (that is, most of the break that I am not spending at the movie theater with my husband) trying to clean house and get organized. But, as I write this, there is still a couple of boxes of Halloween stuff out in the hallway. The one box is T-shirts, and I suppose that it is still there because I'm still finding things to wash and add to the box. But the other box is just sitting there because I haven't gotten around to it yet. I really hope to deal with it today, so that I don't have to deal with organizing Halloween stuff and Christmas stuff at the same time. I will be at Target around 7am on the 26th, so there will definitely be Christmas stuff to deal with soon, even though I didn't unpack much of anything this year.

But that is the usual state of things. What really bothered me here recently is that I don't have the Harry Potter stuff organized. There is no excuse for that really. I know that I usually need it every December, and there are other times during the year that it might be requested. So you would think that I would have it all put neatly away someplace where I could get to it at a moment's notice. Or at least, you'd think that I'd start gathering the stuff so that I could have it all together by mid-December when I know that I'll need it.

I have three wands. Two were cheap things that I bought for myself. I don't mind if I lose those, but that I lose them in my own home instead of when I am out is greatly annoying. I have another wand that is not cheap, and was made by a friend and given to me as a Christmas gift. I know where that one is, but it usually doesn't leave the house because I do not want to lose that one.

I have various hats that do not stay on my head. Most of these are cheap and again I would not mind if I lost one of these while we are out. I have one that I did a lot of work on, but it still wouldn't stay on my head. I tried sewing a hair clasp to the hat, which does keep it from flying off my head, sort of. It still gets blown backward and doesn't stay properly on my head but sort of flops around my neck upside down. So I usually don't bother with the hat, and I wear a hooded cape so if I want something on my head the hood usually works better.

For the most part, the black cape and the Gryffindor scarf are the things that I just can't do without. I have a black dress that I would prefer to wear, but I can't find that half of the time. I have a black vest that I wear, but since it is black against an already black dress it doesn't really show that much anyway. If I can't find the black dress I do have a number of black turtlenecks to choose from as well a few black skirts. And I could even switch to black pants if I had to. Then there are various black shoes to choose from if I cannot find the preferred black boots.

So the day that I need the costume I know that I won't be wearing the dress, because I looked for that already and I couldn't find it anywhere. Finding an alternate skirt took longer than I expected, and went through three turtlenecks before I found a suitable one. The black vest turned up, but not the preferred black boots. Still there was a shorter pair of black boots, so that was okay.

The black cape was not where I normally keep it, but then I remembered taking it out in case I decided to be Little Black Riding Hood instead of Little Red Riding Hood.

Okay. Hat? Not this time. Wand? Skip it. Black hooded cape, check. Black skirt, check. Black turtleneck, check. Black vest, check. Black boots, check. Black purse, check. Gryffindor scarf?

Where the hell is my scarf?

Once in a while, I make an effort to get the scarves and the yarn at least in one room. So when I didn't find the scarf where I thought I'd left it, I thought maybe it was in the other room with some other scarves. I found the original practice scarf which I wear just when it is cold, but I do not think it is good enough for part of a costume. I found a scarf that I had started for a friend but then never finished because I decided to instead make scarves for his whole family and this one didn't quite match the other three. I found another unfinished scarf that I had started for a club auction, but the auction winner preferred the Ravenclaw scarf. I found Dr. Who type scarves and other scarves, but no Gryffindor scarf that I wear with my costume.

Should I cancel? Should I just go dressed all in black with no scarf?

Maybe I should wear a different scarf?

I found a green and grey Slytherin scarf, which I had thought was finished until I noticed that I had somehow made two extra tassels on one side and they would have to be redone. But I suppose that they don't have to be redone right this minute. I can probably wear the thing and only I would notice the problem with the tassels.

Actually, switching to Slytherin worked out okay. I practiced being a whole different character from the one I'd made up earlier. I complained about Muggles and not liking children and all of that.

And it gave me an excuse to get out of the singing. I don't sing. I just sort of go along and pretend to sing. With this grumpy character, I didn't even have to pretend.

So it did work out in the end. But really, I should be more organized. What's the point of having this stuff if I can't find it when we need it?