...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.

The video contest

I sort of want to label this a Monday Moron post, except that I'm not really sure who is the moron in the story, unless maybe it is me, and I was the moron last time.

Anyway, several months ago (I think it was September, though it might even have been August), I found out about a certain contest. The idea was to video a bit about what you could do with a certain amount of money, and then you post your video on YouTube and this other site, and then people would leave comments about the videos and vote on the videos, though the contest was supposed to be decided not by the public votes but by a panel of judges.

I had never made a video before, but I had a few ideas, and I noticed that there were not very many entries. There wasn't a big money prize either, but I thought that I might as well give it a try. First place was five hundred dollars, second place was three hundred dollars, and third place was a hundred dollars. With less than a dozen entries, the odds were good.

Now if I could just find a video recorder.

First, I thought that I would borrow my brother's. Now, he didn't have a problem loaning me the camera, he just said that it was old now and didn't have an easy way to convert to digital, which is what I would need to get the video on YouTube, so I decided to look elsewhere.

Dmarks pointed out that I probably already had a video recorder on my husband's digital camera. I didn't think so, but it turns out that Dmarks was right. Making videos with the camera was not recommended and did not produce videos of high quality, but it would probably be good enough for making short videos for YouTube.

My husband and I made the first one together and uploaded it on his account, cause I forgot the password for my account, and then I thought of a few more videos that I could make on my own. We put up two more videos on my account, though these were not as good as the first. Then we waited to see if we won anything.

The deadline for the contest ending was pushed back several weeks, cause there just weren't many videos. This upset me a little bit, because at the time the public vote had our first video in third place, and if the panel of judges agreed with the public we would have won a hundred dollars. At the time, I really wanted that hundred dollars. I planned to buy Christmas presents with it. If the entry deadline was postponed, there might be a new video that was better than mine.

But, there was nothing that I could do about that. I re-edited the two videos that I made myself and added a third one. The entry limit was five, but I couldn't think of another one. And I emailed the people having the contest, explaining that my husband and I had worked on the first one together, so that I really had four entries, though probably we could have gotten away with making five videos each and entering ten videos. I asked for some clarification on that and some of the other rules, but I received no reply. We both got a few automated responses for stuff like the entry deadline being pushed back.

There were more videos posted, but there still weren't a lot. Our first video stayed in third place. The second deadline passed, and we waited to hear if we won anything. This was in October.

And for about a week, nothing happened. And then my husband got an email saying that we had won third place. I sent an email thanking them and sent our address and phone number and such, and waited for our prize money to show up in the mail.

Another week went by, and nothing happened.

I then received an email thanking me for the three videos that did not win. Actually, I got three emails, one for each video, though all the emails were the same. I was told that I would receive a small prize for participating. I wondered if I would receive one prize or one for each video. I emailed back, again with our address and phone number, again explained how my husband and I had worked on the first video together and I had done the three others by myself, and I didn't want anyone to think that we had in some way cheated, cause the limit was five videos, and this only gave me a total of four videos. And I asked if I would still get the consolation prize since I had already won third place, or would my husband get third place and I would get one consolation prize, or would my husband get third place and I would get one consolation prize for each of the other three videos?

And I waited, and I didn't hear anything for another week. Finally, my husband received an email saying that he would receive the third place prize after he filled out some forms, and there was a fax number where to send the forms. And I received an email that said I would receive a consolation prize for each of the three videos that did not win, again after I filled out some forms and faxed them. One of the forms needed my our social security numbers, which I really didn't want to send if it wasn't necessary (which they said that it was needed for tax purposes), and if it was necessary did it have to be sent by fax? Both forms had the wrong amount, and I asked that they be changed, and then I saw that I could change the amount myself and did so, and I emailed about the change and that I would rather not send a fax, and I filled out the forms and waited for an email confirming that I could send the forms by regular mail.

I waited about a week, and nothing happened.

Okay, fax it is. I think that there is a fax on this printer, but I couldn't figure out how to work it. But, we had a new printer (sort of a spare, which we had put back in the box after printing one or two things with it), and that seemed easier to use, and I sent the fax.

And I waited about a week, and nothing happened. It is now November.

I was about to send yet another email to complain, when it occurred to me that the mistake might have been mine. So I again took the new printer out of the box and tried to send the fax. This time I see that it doesn't work, that the line is busy. I figure that they are just busy, that it is a Monday morning, and they probably just get a lot of faxes on Monday morning. I try again later in the day, but I get the same message. And I try again several times later in the week, but the same thing happens regardless of the day of the week or the time of day. Line busy, line busy, line busy.

I decide that the problem is on my end and give up trying to fax with that machine. I will have to pay someone to fax this thing, which I don't want to do. We aren't talking about a lot of prize money, and I can't even think of who does that sort of thing, other than hotels and maybe Kinko's and the places that rent mailboxes and such. Those places were not near my house, they were near school, and while I used to make that drive everyday when I was in school, I didn't want to waste an hour doing that when I had no other reason to drive there.

My husband had a few out of town trips, so I thought maybe I would use the motel fax. Except that most of the trips were to the middle of nowhere and he stayed at cheap mom and pop motels where mom usually doesn't speak much English, and I don't think that they had fax machines for us to use. But there was one trip in a city at a nicer motel, and I just assumed that I would send the fax from there, but I was told that they did not have a business center.

It is now December. I figure that I will find something while I am out Christmas shopping. I get busy with other things. I forget about the whole fax thing.

After New Year's I was in the grocery store getting some lottery tickets, and I notice a sign that says the fax machine is being repaired. I didn't know that they still had a fax machine. They used to offer fax service, and bill paying services, and copying services, but the copier has been gone for a long time, and they had stopped doing a lot of the bill paying services, so I had thought that that whole service thing had been done away with because most of us could do the same thing ourselves on our home computers. Not so. The copy machine was gone because it was just too big and they needed the space for something else. The bill paying stuff was mostly canceled, not by the store, but by the companies they were forwarding payments to. The fax machine was still there, just it wasn't used much.

I went back the next week after the machine had been repaired and paid to have the fax sent. And I got the little printout that says the fax was successfully sent, instead of "line busy" like I kept getting when I tried to send it myself.

I went home and sent an email explaining about the delay but that I had sent the fax.

While I was looking for the email address, I found an unopened email confirming that I could send the forms by regular mail and confirming the mailing address and such. I wanted to send the forms regular mail from the beginning, I just didn't want to do that without them confirming a mailing address, and here it was. The email just didn't show up on the day that it was sent. By the time I got it, I had a bunch of other emails that I hadn't deleted, so I couldn't see the email a few days later, cause the way the email is listed it appears in the order that it was sent instead of in the order that it was received.

Doh!

Okay, but that doesn't matter, cause I've already spent money to have someone send the forms by fax.

And I wait a week, and nothing happens. And because I have to think that this is mostly my fault and that they are not trying to cheat me, I wait another week. I still don't have my money. But I now have a confirmed mailing address, so I will send the forms yet again, this time by snail mail, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.

A few things in no particular order

A friend sent me a link about a job, and I can't get it to work. I will try again later, but maybe it isn't worth the effort, as I missed four or five questions on what seemed to be an easy practice test. I'm getting old. I'm slipping.

We have finally figured out the whole unemployment thing. The thing about the unemployment is that you have to file all the time, even when you worked and don't need it, even when you didn't apply for a job and won't get it, even if you turned down work and won't get it, even when all this is going to do is waste time and make people at the unemployment office do more work that is totally unnecessary, and that way you are still in the system on the week that you don't work and need the money, and they send you your money in a reasonable amount of time and such.

So that is what we are doing. Unfortunately, now that we have figured all of that out, we are told that we only have ten thousand dollars left, and the way things are going that isn't going to last us very long.

My husband seems to be making an effort to be especially nice to me, if you can call it that after more than three years of him still not having done one thing that he was supposed to do for us to be roommates, much less actually be back together like nothing had happened. On my part I was having one of those moments when I think that I might as well try to enjoy myself with the way things are, as they will probably not change in the near future. He worked two days last week and two days the week before, and then he is not likely to work at all for the next two weeks, and then we don't know what is going to happen after that. So of course what we tend to do when he has all this time off is go to restaurants and go to movies and go shopping. Well, we are short on money, though not as short as we would be now that we have figured out the whole unemployment thing. We have not been going out to nice restaurants, just now and then going to Arby's and such, cause we have coupons. And we haven't done that much shopping, but we have bought a few things. While I feel some guilt over that, I can't really say that I feel bad about seeing a few movies, as we have a couple of inexpensive theaters. But there are still days when we stay home and do absolutely nothing, and it tends to get on my nerves spending all that time together doing nothing, sort of getting in each others way.

Not that the day I had to myself went any better. I had planned to spend it knitting, and something went wrong, and I don't know if I can fix it. And he was really trying to be nice to me after that, but there is just nothing to be done about it. I will just have to put the thing away for a while, and maybe after some time has past I will see a solution and not get so upset when I look at it. I instead spent the day watching videos, but I did not feel much better. The next day when he was trying to be nice to me, I did make an attempt to just forget about everything that is stressing me out and just enjoy the day, which I did, for a while. And then the next day I noticed something, and that made me think that something is going to go wrong, and that he knew about it and intended for something to wrong, or at least that he was okay with it. But even if nothing goes wrong, that is what I think of him now, that he is very selfish and this attempt at being nice is just to hide the fact that something else is going to go wrong and that he is responsible.

Christmas Eve dinner was finally rescheduled for yesterday. I ate a half dozen oysters and have no need to see anymore oysters for a while. They were really big oysters too. I'm not really complaining, the food was good, and it was good to see everyone and it was good for mom to have a break, as grandma did not get better like we thought from her most recent hospital stay.

Saturday was fun, though not what I had imagined. We did trivia as planned, but just regular trivia, not sci fi stuff like usual. So I did not win, even after having put together a really great team. And we were playing Family Feud, and the answers are based on what people think is the answer, even if that in fact is not the answer. So we were trying to "steal" points from the other team, and we just don't have any good ideas. The question involved things that turn from green to yellow, and all the good answers have been taken, and all I can think of is pears. My friend thinks maybe the answer is yellow squash, except that I and another friend have gardens, and we know that yellow squash starts out yellow, or maybe even white, and is never green to begin with. So we go with pear, cause no one else can think of anything, and the answer was squash. And then there was a question involving things associated with Texas, and the answers to this question obviously did not come from Texas, and no one was getting those right. And then there was a question about haunted houses, and I was thinking theatrical production, and I guess that the people taking the survey were thinking real house that no one lives in anymore. So we got all of that wrong too. But it was still fun, and I didn't need a silly plague anyway.

I have really had it with all the junk. This helps somewhat when we are shopping, as I have several times put things back, cause I'm thinking that I don't need it right away and I don't want it enough to find someplace to put it, and if something happened and I had to move away, would I want to pack this? Probably not. So I have stopped myself from buying a few things, but I still don't manage to get rid of much.

I know all the experts say that if you don't use something for a year (especially things that you have had in box that hasn't even been opened for a year), you should get rid of it. And I know that makes sense on some levels, but on other levels it just doesn't work for me. Like I have many craft things that I don't use for a year, but that doesn't mean that I should throw away tools or supplies that are still good (or even still new in the package). And seasonal things stay in boxes most of the year, should I throw them away cause I was too busy to put everything out this year? Throw out the stuff that I didn't put out cause it looks too old or I just don't like it anymore, sure, but just because I didn't use a particular decoration this year doesn't mean that I won't want them next year. And I haven't done any baking in forever, but I just have a feeling that in the future I will want to, maybe because of the financial situation, and then I either wouldn't be able to do anything or else I would have to go and buy all new stuff, which would be hard to do because of the financial situation.

And then like all people who have either been on a diet and gained it all back (or people who keep thinking that they will diet but don't), there are all these clothes to think about. And even if I haven't worn them in a year, it still doesn't seem to be a good idea to throw them out. If my weight changes by ten pounds either way, if I didn't keep the clothes, I would have to go out and buy clothes (clothes that might not even fit for very long), or else I would have to stay in the house all the time naked.

So I guess I would rather live with all the junk than live in fear that I'm going to be stuck in the house naked without bakeware and holiday decorations.

The other thing that I have a lot of that I don't really do much with anymore is books. For the last three or four years I have done little reading. My eyesight isn't what it was, and most of the time I just don't have the attention span necessary to enjoy reading a book. But reading has been such a big part of my life, and I keep thinking that someday I will feel better and want to read again. And it also seems silly to get rid of the one thing that is somewhat organized and I actually have a place for. I have many bookshelves, and the books that I've had for a long time have places on the bookshelves and I know where they are and I can find them when I want them. And then there are some additional books that I'm not quite sure where to put, cause they don't quite go with the books that are already on the shelves. And then there are really new books that I didn't put anywhere, cause I was reading them (or at least I meant to), and they are just here and there. So there is the dilemma about the books that on the one hand I shouldn't get rid of them because if I really put some effort into it that is the one thing that I could get organized and every book would have its place, and on the other hand books are the one thing that I could easily get rid of and there is a place to take them where I wouldn't feel that they had just been tossed out. I could even get some money for them, though not enough for that to be the deciding point. Still, I think today I will make another attempt to cull some of the cookbooks. There are two boxes of them that I meant to look through, and it may have even been a year since I last looked at them.

And while I am trying not to spend money and buy things that I will just have to put away somewhere, I am thinking of buying yet another black dress. I was invited to a party, and it is less than a month away, and since I just now learned of it I haven't been planning what to wear. Ideally, it would be something goth, and while I have plenty of black I don't think that just being black makes it look goth, and of course a lot of my things just don't fit at the moment. So I am looking through my things trying to find something that looks goth, or something that I can add to something to make it look goth. I don't think that my best black dress looks goth, but if I add enough stuff to it then maybe it does, except that I wore all of that to a party this time last year that was for the same people, and I'd rather not wear the same thing two years in a row. Though they do not have the same reason for the party as last year, they are thinking of just having a theme party as an annual event. So this may require a whole series of black dresses and gloves and hair ornaments and such.

I thought that there was more, but now I can't remember what.

Halloween Party 2009: and the Oscar goes to....

Well, I spent most of the day not doing much. I woke up earlier than I wanted, tried to go back to sleep but did not succeed. So I was just trying not to do anything much that would make me tired.

At some point I tried to deal with the weird food. Do to technical difficulties, the weird food did not work out. I tried three times to make it work, but it just wouldn't do. I have an idea now why it didn't work, so I will make one more attempt (for future reference, cause I might want to make that same thing for next year's party), and then I will just give up on the idea. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

Anyway, I don't guess that it matters that much. I don't think that there were cash prizes this year.

After I decided that the weird food wasn't going to work out, I started thinking about putting some flowers in my hair. My costume just didn't look that much like a costume, it was just clothes. I thought that it needed something. And I had bought flowers, thinking that I had wire and such at home to make a wreath, but I couldn't find the wire when I needed it. I tried using something else and then gave up.

Next I thought about props. I was going to make a fake menu and complain about a missing waitress (or, if someone showed up in that costume, complain directly to the waitress), but I changed my mind and put the bar's name on a wine glass. I know, most of the time the name isn't on a wine glass. On a shot glass, sure. On a beer glass, maybe. On a wine glass, not so much, though I suppose they do have them sometimes, and I used to have a souvenir brandy sniffer from a local landmark.

Anyway, I fixed my hair without flowers, put on makeup, but on a necklace that I had added a bull's head with permanent black marker, put on my black almost dress and headed out.

I got to the party and pretended to be Maryann Forrester, the maenad from True Blood, and then I asked people to guess who I was. Only one person could guess. I had clues. I had the bull's head necklace and the wine glass with the Merlotte's logo on it. Still, only the one person guessed right.

I took off my shoes and sort of danced around the place, thanking people for coming to my party. People still couldn't guess. I decided the costume contest might be a waste of time if no one could guess who I was.

I went around the room, telling people that they should loosen up and have a drink. Someone I didn't know said that she couldn't drink because she was the designated driver. I told her she shouldn't drive anyway, just stay at the party.

She thought I was already drunk.

I don't drink. At all. Ever.

It is called acting.

Anyway, we weren't supposed to open the bar until nine, but since no children came, we opened the bar at seven, and people just thought I had a few too many.

More fun. Still didn't tell anyone who I was. They would just have to guess.

A couple of guys tossed coins at my cleavage. One of them actually landed on target.

About this time I decided to do the costume contest anyway. Then I could tell everyone at once who I was supposed to be.

Taking the shoes off seemed like a good idea, but my feet really started to hurt right before the contest. I took a break.

Then we lined up for the contest, and without assigned numbers it was just whoever got in line first got to go first, so I was third. Which meant that I got to sit down sooner and rest my feet some more.

The judges went off to debate who won what. There was more dancing (without me) and door prizes giving away (I didn't win any), and then the judges came back out to announce the winners.

Without much in the way of a costume, and there not being a special award for staying in character, I did not really expect to win much if anything. I hoped I would get an honorable mention, but, no.

Miss Allergies got Most Beautiful. A chupacabra got Most Disturbing. There were about four or five other awards given away before they got to Best In Show, which I assumed would go to the pilot, since he didn't win anything else. The pilot and his wife came as these old toys where you move metal "hair" around a face with a magnet. So we spent the evening giving the two of them interesting hairdos.

So I just knew that the pilot would get the last award, until the head judge started saying something about drinking and such. I don't quite remember what he said or who he was quoting.

I got Best In Show. I have never won Best In Show at the Halloween Party, and my one time winning Best In Show at a con must have been fifteen years ago. So I was totally surprised.

Some other people were also totally surprised, and maybe not too happy. The pilot was happy for me, but people who just didn't get it, well, they just didn't get it.

So it was explained to someone that I (and a couple of other people who also won awards) had stayed in character all night until the contest (almost three hours for me), and that even though they didn't have a special award for staying in character that they decided those of us who did should get extra points for our efforts.

And here I had almost decided not to enter the contest.

So I had fun at the party, even if the rest of the Halloween season was a bust.

A few days by myself

There are little things that I like about having the place to myself. Like I can leave the kitchen light on all night without having someone around to complain about it. Like if I wake up in the middle of the night I can roll over and watch TV without disturbing the other person.

Would have been nice to have a working VCR when I wanted to watch TV in bed, but I still don't have one. My brother gave me a VCR that he wasn't using, but you need the remote to set up the VCR, and the remote is ruined because the batteries were left in it when it was put into storage.

Don't ever put things into storage until you've removed the batteries.

Other than that, I had a pleasant enough day, and I got almost six hours of sleep last night.

Another thing about having the place to myself is that I can take naps whenever I want and not have to worry about the other person's schedule.

A couple of days ago I got out the knitting machine and moved it into another room. It wasn't working very well where I had it, partially because I haven't used it in almost a year, and partially because the table wobbled a bit. So I hoped that it would work better once I got it set up in a more stable spot, which it did, but I am still out of practice a bit, and I've misplaced some tools and what I am using as substitutes aren't working as well as I'd hoped. But they do work somewhat, so I've decided to continue with a project that I hope will end up being Miss Allergies Christmas present.

If that goes well, I will make something similar for someone else. That still leaves one friend that I don't have money for, two friends that I don't have a clue, and most of my family that I don't have a clue.

Back to the knitting.

About a year ago we found another knitting machine in a thrift store. It was a slightly older model, but still basically the same as the one I already had. It was "new in the box" and had all of the necessary parts. It was forty dollars. We bought it. Not that I really thought that I would need a whole second machine, but I thought it would be nice to have replacements parts if I broke a keyplate or something. And of course, I was always losing things like transfer tools and latch hook tools, so now I had a whole new set of those.

So I eventually lost all of the first set of transfer tools, both latch hook tools, and all but one of the new transfer tools. I still have all of the other parts such as keyplates from both sets. And somewhere around here I even have another whole machine that I have never even set up. It is still in the box, but I've put the tools that came with it somewhere else.

I have tried to get other things that would work as latch hook tools. First, I bought several latch hook tools made for rug kits. These are available at most craft stores for a few dollars. But, while they pretty much look the same, they are a bit too big to replace the ones I lost. The second thing that I did was bid on a few eBay auctions to get replacement "needles", thinking that most machines would use the same size I had. Actually, most machines use "needles" that are smaller than those on my machine, and so I bought ten very reasonable priced smaller "needles" that I was going to make latch hook tools from, only after seeing how small they were I didn't bother.

At the time I did all of that I was just looking for backups, just in case. I still had at least one complete set of tools. Now that I have lost all but the one transfer tool, I have to use the other latch hooks, one that is too big, and one that is too small. Though not comfortable to hold, the smaller one looks better, so I am mainly using that.

At this point I would pay for the over priced tools and the shipping if I had any money, which I don't. Yesterday I was desperate enough to try to break a "needle" off of the spare machine. Except that when I went to get it, I found only the empty box from the first machine. Now I can't find the second machine.

I did all of this cleaning. How come I still can't find things?

The other thing I will probably do this weekend is make more videos. I found another contest. In fact, I've found several, but I don't have ideas for all of them yet.

We have received emails from the first contest saying that we had won third place (a hundred dollars) and then the non-winning entries were supposed to receive $20.09 each. Since I had three non-winner entries, and received an email for each, we should be getting a total of $160.27. Except that there has been no word from them this week. Monday was a holiday, so maybe that slowed things down a bit, but I would have thought that they would at least send us another email.

I could really use $160.27 right about now. We have to sign something first. Maybe something will be in the mail today. But still, you'd think that they would have emailed and told us to watch for it in the mail.

Still a bit early to do much of anything. I think maybe I'll watch Bones or something.

Oh, and yesterday I found a link for a movie my dad rather liked called The 27th Day.
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=M783NEWE

Still no word from Publisher's Clearing House

And no big winning lotto tickets either.

But it looks like we will be getting a hundred dollars for the gardening video.

While I am happy, it doesn't even make up for the latest drama with the bank.

Since I the time I had first wanted to enter the video contest, my hopes for winning have gone from--it sure would be nice to have some extra money--to--I could make a car payment with that--to--I'm behind on a car payment and need some money to catch up--to--at this point I would just like to get the flu shots and maybe buy some groceries if I win something.

Okay, so now I've won something. Not the top prize or even the second prize, but we did win the third prize of a hundred dollars.

And I really would like to have that flu shot before the party.

I will blog more about the bank later.

October 1st

Okay, so the deadline for the video contest has now past.

This apparently hasn't stopped someone from posting a new video for the contest. Not only that, but it has been posted in some way that only friends can see it, and I'm not one of the friends. Hopefully, that person forgot to make the contest one of the friends, and the judges won't be able to see it either.

I would be really mad if I did all this work only to be beaten by someone who entered the contest hours after the deadline pasted.

In case you missed any of my videos, here is the first one. Here is my second one, about knitting, and the revised video now entered in the contest. And here is the video I posted about food, and it's revised version.

And here is my very last video that I posted thirty minutes before midnight yesterday. It's dumb. The voiceover part is terrible. It wasn't great to start with, but I thought I had turned it up enough to hear it. I've had a lot of trouble with the voiceover stuff, and last night I was working by myself and couldn't figure out what was wrong. First, the clips weren't properly muted, so I had to go back and do that. And sometimes the microphone doesn't do well near a power pack, so I moved that, but there's only so far that you can move that to and still have it work. And I just ran out of things to try, and I ran out of time, so I posted the video anyway.

I did at least figure out how to turn down the music a bit.

This is the first one I've added music to. I like this little bit that is supposed to go with the "sports" video, and just before I gave up trying to find it, I decided to make a "sports" clip and then just deleted everything else from the clip except the music.

During the week or so that I didn't work on videos, I forgot how to do a few things. So even though this last video is shorter and there is less going on than in the others, it still took me about six hours to make the thing. That is in addition to filming the thing.

And, as you might guess, most of the day before making the video was spent cleaning the backroom, so that I had something to film.

And I forgot to hide the labels on the yarn, and I didn't have time to do anything to fix it. So it might not count in the contest anyway.

So of the thirteen videos posted, four of them are mine. I should get something, right?

Last day for videos

Here I am typing on the laptop, which I really don't care for when I have the choice. But, this is where the Internet is connected at the moment, despite the fact that I've made it quite clear how I want things left, with the older computer connected to the Internet and the printer, and the laptop not connected to anything (except when we are uploaded videos or doing business stuff with it). Laptops do not so much function as laptops when there are all these wires and such coming out of them.

So, here I am trying to type on the Mickey Mouse keyboard that is part of the laptop, looking at the little screen that is part of the laptop, etc.... I did ask yesterday about the process of switching the Internet from one computer to the other, and I was told that I neglected to turn something off and on again. So, I tried that this morning, and it didn't seem to do anything. So, I thought that maybe in addition to that I was supposed to also turn the computer itself off and on, but again that did not seem to accomplish anything. So I guess I will have to watch him demonstrate the process, I will need to do that later today, unless I leave the Internet hooked up to the laptop all day, which I do not think that I would care for.

The extended deadline for the video contest is today, and I am debating about doing one last video. I have redone the three others, and posted two of them. I think I will leave the first one alone, just in case those votes do count for something.

The videos are not as fun as they were to begin with, but now I really need the money. So I have to keep trying. And even with that it is probably time to give up and go work at McDonald's. Not that McDonald's is hiring, and I don't speak Spanish so I wouldn't be able to talk to anyone anyway.

I went to Irving yesterday, and while it took longer than I expected and I got a bit of a headache and such for going out so long without lunch, I got most of what I wanted accomplished, except in the Halloween costume department. And with all that is going on, I shouldn't be thinking about Halloween costumes anyway. But I have this dress, and this idea, and this is really the only year that I would want to use this idea, and probably the only year I would want to use this dress. I could just wear it the way that it is and just try to find shoes for it, but I'm thinking at my current weight it would look so much better as a long dress with sleeves. But so far I haven't any luck finding appropriate material to make the alterations.

At this point, I haven't even had any luck finding a bra that will work with it.

But as for the rest of the shopping, it went well enough. Not finding a lot of things that you want also means that you don't spend very much money. So that part was good. He found a couple of books that didn't cost much, and I found a toy knitting machine for two dollars. And I sold two more boxes of books. I can't remember how many that is now, but it must be at least five boxes. Somehow after selling all of those books I still have three boxes that don't fit on the shelves, but I am making a little progress. And I managed to remember to pick up my pills, so I don't think I'll be needing to go back to Irving for a while.

After the late lunch I was still hungry. I seemed to stay hungry for the rest of the day. Then I remembered that this was the last few days that I could buy a three dollar pizza, so we went to get one of those. So (not counting the pills, which I already put aside money for) I gained fifteen more dollars from selling the books than I spent. Today I will go and use the last of my rain checks and buy another ten or twenty pounds of chicken. Then I will be out of money again for a few days.

I think that I will have a very busy day if I try to work on a video in addition to all of the other stuff I have to do. But it is just the one day, so I can probably handle it.

Saturday was fun, and I got some work done

Well, I never get as much accomplished as I might want to, but I did get some work done last week. But before I get all happy about it, I have to remember that the major cleaning and sorting I did was just in one room. And it isn't even that I got a whole room cleaned and sorted, just I mainly got half of the room cleaned and sorted. And there are still things in boxes that I have to go back and look at later. But there are shelves that had everything removed and cleaned and then put back, and there were a few boxes of books that were sold, and there were several bags of trash that went to the curb, and there were two boxes of other things taken away.

How that still leaves boxes on the floor to be sorted out, I'm not sure. And that is in addition to the boxes that are always there that have already been sorted out.

So that took most of four days to do that work, and little else, though I did do just a tiny bit of the regular work of doing the dishes and cooking and such. With it just being me by myself I didn't have as much of that to do and I decided to put off doing the laundry since I would have more laundry to do today anyway.

Anyway, if it takes most of my week just to do most of half of a room, when I am really trying, how long would it take to do the other half of the room, plus three more rooms, while trying to keep up with the regular stuff of washing dishes and cooking and laundry and such?

And with all of this cleaning and sorting and such, why are things still missing? Why can't I find the second season DVD of Land of the Lost, and why is the relatively recently acquired Aliens DVD missing?

Okay, back to the question of the cleaning and sorting. If it takes me most of a week to clean most of half of a room, and I still have the other half of the room and three other rooms left to work on, I guess that would take me another seven weeks, in addition to whatever time I would have to spend doing normal stuff like laundry and trying to somewhat keep the kitchen in order. And I don't seem to get anything done except when I have the house to myself. Even a day when I have the house to myself after he goes to work is not the same, especially since he usually doesn't go to work until well after lunch.

Having the place to myself has its problems. Not having the place to myself has other problems.

He will work today, which is unusual, but then he won't be working tomorrow or the next day, so that isn't good either. A four day week, followed by another four day week. Not as bad as a three or two day week, but we need money, and I need to get things done.

And I should get back to those videos. The deadline for the contest was pushed back, I think til Wednesday. If I'm going to do anything it needs to get done today and tomorrow. I got more time to work on it and I've mostly not used it.

Saturday, I took a break from everything and went to hang out with my friends. But before that I had a moment to see my sister and my mother, and there were no problems with my mother cause I didn't stay that long and my sister was there. I had a couple of things that I wanted my sister to have, and I've had them almost a year now, and I keep forgetting to give them to her. I come across something, put it aside so that I'll give it to her, and then when the day comes that I'm going to see her I walk right past the thing. Then I come home and see the thing, and it is in the way where it is so I put it somewhere else, because I won't be seeing her again for a while. And then I misplace the thing for another month or so, and then when I know I'm going to see her again I can't find the thing. At this rate, by the time I get the stuff to her, it will no longer be of any use. But I did finally manage to locate both items, remember to put them in the car before I left the house, and I did finally give them to her. After a year, I can at last check that off of the to-do list.

Anyway, Saturday was a lot of fun, even if I personally did not do much. We were supposed to be making Halloween decorations, and some of mine didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Other people did some really nice things, and then later it just got silly. But I'm glad I went. I had been looking forward to it for a month or so. And they fed me. I always appreciate it when people feed me. And I got rid of those two boxes of odd things. Some of it was useful, but I suspect most of it was not.

I have to go to Irving sometime this week. The Only 99 Cents store is closed. I used to go to Irving a lot, and for almost any excuse, cause while I was there I could go to the store. Only now there is no store, and I'm trying to not waste gas. So now going to Irving seems like a big chore. When should I go? I need to figure out what all needs to be done so it can all be in one trip. I don't want to go and then figure out that I have to go back for something on Friday. Should I go today and try to get it all done before lunch, or should I wait til tomorrow? Or should I wait til Friday in hopes that I will convince myself to take more books to sell? Of course, if I wait til Friday, and something comes up that prevents me from going on Friday, I'm screwed. Like it is possible that I should go on Thursday, but what if I get sick on Wednesday?

It really sucks not having money. When to go to Irving becomes a major decision. If I didn't have to worry about money, I would go today, and then if I thought of something else I would just go there again later in the week. But now I should just go the one time, and I don't even have the store to go to and buy cheap food.

My third video is up

I am really worried now that I have done something wrong. There are two other videos that have all the names and such of the products used covered up. I would like to ask someone more about the rules, but I don't see an email address for further information.


There is a phone number and such for the credit union itself, but I would think that was just for banking information. The idea of all this being to promote the company and get more people to open accounts there, not really to explain to people about how they should make videos. And possibly, the contest itself is not even being handled by the credit union. Maybe stuff like that is handled by another company entirely.


Anyway, I made a video about food and uploaded it last night. Again, by the time that happened I was very tired, and in the morning the video doesn't seem to say what I wanted it to.

It is one thing to not do well in a competition because the others are better than you. It is something else entirely to lose because you misunderstand a rule or miss something.

I am not having a good day, but I won't get into why just yet. As for the other videos, at this point, I don't feel like making them. I am having technical difficulties that prevent me from doing the simple point and shoot things that I meant to do, and if I'm not supposed to show names of products or places, it would be a waste of time to film anything else anyway.

I don't even think I should bother with the road trip idea, even if I could do something interesting on the subject without actually taking a trip. It looks like someone else has made a video on that subject, and I'd rather not make a video that appears to copy someone else's idea, even if I did have the idea first.

I think that I will go look at the first three videos and see if I could do something different with them that doesn't show company names.

Maybe making videos just isn't my thing

Well, I had thought that I would make more videos for this contest I've entered. If my chances of winning something with one video are good, then the odds of me winning something with two videos are twice as good, and three or four or five videos would be even better. And while my first video was rather complicated (for me, as neither of us had tried working with video before), the others I had planned were things that I thought would be easier. The editing and working with the voiceover bit took a lot longer than I thought on the first one, so the second one I had planned wasn't supposed to use the voiceover at all and very little editing. I thought I would do that yesterday, and have the whole thing finished before lunch.

Of course I thought that. I always think that.

So I set up the camera. I put some things on the table and focused the camera on a chair, turned the camera on, and went and sat in the chair. Now, I knew that sometimes I would screw up something that I had to say, and stuff like that would be edited out and done over again, but I actually thought that I would record about five minutes of me saying what I had to say, and then maybe saying parts of it over again if I messed up anything, and then I would have two additional shots that I would need help with, go and edit out a few seconds here and there when I wasn't saying anything, and that would be that.

I really did plan it that way.

First off, I was speaking very slowly when talking to the camera. So what I thought was about three minutes turned out to be about twice as long. The second problem was that I too far away from the camera for the sound to be any good.

And the third thing was that I looked just awful. The video was about knitting, and while I wasn't planning to actually do a lot of knitting during the video, I did do some knitting, and of course when I knit I look down a bit so that I can actually see what I'm doing. And every time I look down, I look really bad.

Not that I looked really good to start with.

So now I don't look good, and I'll have to do the voiceover thing again. And I can't just do the voiceover some parts and keep the original sound in other parts. For one thing, the volume on the camera is really low, while the microphone voiceover is quite loud. And I wouldn't be able to get the voiceover to match what I was saying on the video, so it would just look like a bad foreign film. So I kept this one little part where I didn't even try to match the voiceover to what I was actually saying, and it probably does look like a bad foreign film. I shot a bunch of other stuff to add to it, and did voiceover, and that pretty much took all day (though I did take a break to watch True Blood).

So I could make three more videos, but now I'm wondering if it would be worth the effort. Especially now that I know that the whole just look at the camera and talk thing isn't going to work out.

The video about scarves has been uploaded. And I was able to put it on my account instead of my husbands. The last video was put on his account, cause I couldn't remember my password or something.

At least there aren't any misspelled words on this one.

Maybe I will make more videos

Today I am cleaning the dining room area, somewhat, as later today or tomorrow I will attempt to film another video. At least, I will if I find that dress I was going to wear, or if I find something else to wear. Anyway, I am partially redecorating the area with Halloween stuff, though I'm just moving stuff from the other room. I still haven't unpacked the other Halloween stuff from the boxes.

And then there's another video that I might work on. In fact there are several that I might work on, but not today. I believe that the contest is limited to five videos. The problem is narrowing it down to five, and which five, and once I've decided to film something should I spend the money to really film my idea.

For instance, David has this idea of feeding a hundred people with $20.09, but he hasn't quite figured out how to do it. I'm pretty sure I could make a hundred meals with that amount of money, though they would be very something very small and basic like soup. But it would be a very boring video if I'm just standing there saying that I know how to do it, without filming any cooking or anyone eating. But I don't really want to make a hundred meals next week. Maybe I could make ten meals for two dollars, and if you wanted to make ten times that amount it would add up to a hundred meals for $20.09.

But then, that is David's idea, and everyone knows that it is David's idea. I'm not sure that I should take his idea, even if he doesn't know how to make it work and I probably do.

In fact, I didn't even want to do the coupon thing cause David was already doing food. I used to do the coupon thing, but I mostly stopped doing it several years ago when I was trying to lose weight.

I know, now that you have seen my video, you don't believe that I was trying to lose weight very hard. Still, I was at some point, and I decided to stop eating so much packaged foods and start eating more fresh vegetables, and there aren't that many coupons for fresh vegetables, and it just wasn't worth the effort anymore.

I could do a travel thing, but again, if I didn't actually travel anywhere, that would be a rather boring video. Anyplace that I can actually get to for that amount of money is someplace that I've already been to and don't really need to go to again this week.

Maybe I'll only make three videos. That's probably a lot for someone who never made a video before last week.

I half want to do a video on things you can eat besides quinoa.

Yesterday, I went to look at one of the blogs written by one of David's readers. She doesn't write much, she just takes a lot of pictures. She had a picture of a garden bed she wanted to start. She currently has it right up against the fence. I tried to warn her that she should move it away from the fence, at least enough that she can walk all the way around her garden, but I couldn't get the comment thing to work.

Maybe David can warn her.

Yesterday, I got a comment from a new reader. And then he deleted the comment. That was odd, since he didn't write anything bad. Whatever.

And, yesterday, I got a look at the new CW show The Vampire Diaries. I didn't know that it was on, so I missed about the first five minutes or so. It looks to be a lot like Twilight.

I miss David's blog. Not that David's blog has gone anywhere, just that he isn't doing much with it right now. He's finished his first challenge, and he's come up with ideas for other challenges, but now he's wondering if he should actually do any of them. He has doubts about being able to feed a hundred people for $20.09. And he's back to school now, and he's busy with other things. There's not much time left for blogging anyway.

I keep telling myself that I shouldn't spend so much time blogging, and compared to what I used to do, I have really cut back. But I found a blog that I liked to read, and it's writer has gone back to his real life, and I miss reading it. It was a bit of fun.

Like this video thing. Next week it will be over, and I will again be waiting for things to get back to normal, which they never will. But I will be back to the same old stuff, without the distraction of the videos.

Same old stuff.

So what did everyone think of my video?

Did you like it? Did you hate it? Did you wonder why I wasted my time with it?

Am I going to win this contest? Should I do another video? Should I not bother with another video because someone else is going to win?

Should we warn that other girl that burying a lottery ticket is a very bad idea?

I keep going over to the YouTube page. 39 views. The first time it was only six views, and we figured that was just us making sure that it worked okay. But now, 39 views. So that means that like 33 people have watched it.

Probably just my competition watching it, thinking, I could do better than that.

Hey, it was our first video.

What would we do with that?

So it is the ninth day of the ninth month of the year 2009. It looks cool to write out 9-09-09. But, well, big deal.

The Beatles had this song. Well, it wasn't much of a song. Let's call it some space on one of their records. Anyway, the Beatles had this space on one of their records where one of them just keeps saying "number nine" over and over again. Weird.

So on this day, they are selling the Beatles Rock Band, which is like Guitar Hero, which I have never played anyway. And there are contests. And on this day, a store in our general area is going to open two hours early and have contests and give away stuff, etc.... And my husband thought that was cool that this particular contest is only in ten stores nationwide, and one of them is in our general area.

So he planned to get up early and go to this store and see if he could win something.

He must have told me about this a week or two ago, and he didn't notice that I did not get all excited about it. So last night when he is reminding me that we need to get up early, he actually seemed surprised to hear that I wasn't planning to go with him. I mean, I'll probably be awake, I usually wake up hours before he does whether I want to or not, but I still don't see the point of me going to this store.

First of all, is it a trivia contest? Ask me about Star Trek or some other sci fi thing, sure, but I don't expect to beat anyone on music trivia, even if it is the Beatles. So that's one thing, if it is trivia, he might win something, but I wouldn't.

Second, what would I do with the stuff if I won something? First place, I cannot use. Other stuff, I probably wouldn't' want, but I suppose that I could sell some of it on eBay. If I won a Beatles record, that would be nice, but really, we already have those somewhere, don't we? And if we are missing anything, he would just get it on line now anyway.

So I probably would not win anything, and if I did win something I wouldn't know what to do with it, and if I won something that I actually wanted it probably isn't anything that I would want bad enough to go to this store and stand in line or whatever.

I rather pictured having the morning to myself.

Not that I won't have the afternoon to myself after he goes to work. I don't guess I really need to do anything else this morning. Maybe he just thinks that I'm being a bitch. Maybe he realizes that I wouldn't win any trivia contest, but he just wanted the company.

So I'm sitting here trying to decide if I should change my mind and go with him. And I had about decided that I should get cleaned up and go with him, only it was time for me to wake him up, and he would want the shower first. If he really wanted me to go with him, he could wait a little bit for me to get ready.

I don't usually bother with a lot of prep time in the morning. Most days it just doesn't do that much good anyway.

So I have talked myself into going to this thing if he still wants me to go. And I go in to wake him up, and he's changed his mind.

He goes back to sleep.

Whatever.

I have just entered the contest

We have uploaded the video now, so you can go here and see if you can figure out which video is mine.

Shouldn't be too hard.

Anyway, we didn't use my YouTube account cause I couldn't remember the password.

Now I have to decide if I want to make four more videos. If I do, they probably won't be this complicated. This one took a long time.

Nearly finished, I hope

Finishing up filming took longer than expected. With so little left to do, I figured that I didn't really need to worry about getting an early start. So we went out a bit after lunch, and while I didn't have much work to do, it was just too hot. It is a bit cooler than it had been, but do even a little bit of work and you really start to sweat. And I didn't want to sweat in my video. So I took a break, did some more work, took another break, finished most of the work, took another break, watched an hour of TV, went back outside and did the last part of the video.

And so now I would be finished with the filming part, except that I forgot a few things. The main thing that I forgot was that I was going to have this little bit of me with the money, the $20.09, only of course now I don't have any money, so I will have to go and borrow some money for about five minutes so I can get that part. And then there is something else like that we would film indoors and would only take about five minutes to set up.

As it is we have over ten minutes of film that has to be cut to less than three minutes, so I might not bother with it.

We are having trouble figuring out the editing. I suppose that I still have a week or so left to get the hang of it, but I was hoping to be done with it today. I probably won't.

While we were trying to figure things out, my husband accidentally made a sports video from it. It has nothing to do with sports, but there was a sample of everything we filmed cut down to three minutes, music was added, and the titles said stuff like I love sports. I really hate sports, so that was funny.

David is all finished with his challenge, which I'm sure he is glad of, but I will miss reading about it.

I think later I will post some of the dumb things that I read from other people who left comments.

We really must film the last part of the video today

And I have no doubt that we will do just that, after we've watched Sunday Morning, and after I get cleaned up a bit and such. I haven't heard that it is going to rain or anything, so it should get done before lunch, and then we can think about editing.

Neither of us has done a video before, so we know nothing of editing.

I am thinking that I will make that second video after all. A slightly altered version which would require no editing, so that way I would still have something to send in if the editing of the first video doesn't go well.

Of course, I will have to have nice clean room to film the second video, and nothing here is exactly that. I will have to decide which room would be best and start cleaning it.

Yesterday was a lot of work. First, I got up and did a lot of work, and I knew that it would be a lot of work, I just haven't tried to do so much of this particular work in one day. I was tired and sweaty and I got about a fourth of it done and really did not want to do any more of that. I went inside, and my husband made a very nice sandwich with sausage and that white cheddar we bought Friday. I got cleaned up, and then we drove to the DAV.

I know that we did quite enough shopping already on Friday, but one thing that we had looked for that we did not find anything we wanted was two Dallas Cowboy t-shirts. Not that I'm a big fan and really want one, but sometimes there are silly things to do if you have a team shirt, and I don't have one, so I keep meaning to get one just for those occasions. Like tomorrow, you are supposed to wear something of your favorite sports team to Chick-fil-a, and you get a free sandwich. So, we will say the Cowboys are our favorite team, and we will see if the line for getting a sandwich is too long. Also, Albertson's grocery store has a ten percent off sale on game days for people who wear Cowboys stuff. So now we can do that too.

The nicer looking stuff was long sleeve, but since most of the stuff would be done this month, we decided to get t-shirts, even though they didn't look so great. We spent four dollars on the two t-shirts, and didn't find much else worth looking at as we had been in the store last week.

Then it was back home to do more work. I would get a bit of it done, and then get really tired and go watch TV for a bit. I did that for the rest of the day. I had to leave just a tiny bit of it for this morning.

This is really going to suck if we can't get the editing figured out.

Filming delayed again due to more shopping

Yesterday or the day before, a new reader left a comment on a post I made like a year and a half ago. I don't know if he is still reading. But I thought I would stop and say hello, just in case.

It was raining a bit yesterday, so we did not film the beginning of the video like I had planned. We got an early start on the shopping instead.

First, there was the trip to the bank, cause I think that the ATM was empty. I don't think that has ever happened to me before, though I suppose it must happen once in a while. But, it didn't say that it was out of money, it just refused to give us any. We could check our balance and see that we had money, and we were given the option of depositing money, but we were not given the option of withdrawing any money. Weird.

So after we went to the bank to get our money, we had to go to a different bank and deposit some money. Then I had to go pick up some pills, and as long as we were in the neighborhood we might as well go to the Only 99 cents store.

It was closed. The store is gone. I learned that was going to happen last week, but I didn't realize it would happen so soon. I was expecting a clearance sale or something. But, no. It is just gone now.

I loved that store, and there isn't another one within a reasonable driving distance for regular shopping visits.

The rest of the shopping went rather well, considering it was off to such a sad start.

From there we went to eat at Pancho's, and since the Irving location has closed we had to go to Euless. We shouldn't have spent the money, and we didn't even have a coupon, but this is one of his favorite places, and for the last three or four times I've talked him into something else. So we ate out this one time, and we will behave ourselves for the next week or so.

From there we went to Goodwill, and almost all the dresses I like were black. I love black, but I really can't justify buying another black dress. No matter how good it might look, it would just be another black dress, and I doubt that anyone would even notice that it was a new black dress. I might see all these little details that might it look good on me and make it look better than the last one, but if I want a new dress I should probably wait and buy something that really looks different. There were a few other things that caught my attention, but nothing really spoke to me enough to try anything on. We didn't buy anything at that stop.

Next stop, Jo Ann's Fabrics. Not that I bought anything there either, but I did want to have a look around. The one thing that I actually went in thinking I might buy I found for eight dollars, but I was thinking it would only cost two or three dollars, so I didn't buy it. And then there was something else that I had to look at, not cause I needed to buy one, but just cause I needed to know what a new one cost. A red knifty knitter, sold by itself, is seven dollars and forty-nine cents. I took a quick look at the Halloween stuff, and then I left.

Having come so far into the Tarrant County side, we kept going. We went to Thrift Town, and that was worth the drive even if we hadn't gone anywhere else. In September and October, they put out the clothes that they can't sell the rest of the year, just in case someone might want something for Halloween. So not only is there all this great stuff, it usually doesn't cost that much, cause if they don't sell it before October 31st, they either have to put it in storage for another year, or they have to put it in the trash.

So, I just wanted everything, but I managed to narrow it down to five things before heading to the dressing room. One item wasn't even for me. I plan to give it to a friend for Christmas, cause he never has any costume stuff to wear. Then there was a long blue dress, which isn't too different from a long black dress, but it wouldn't be exactly the same either. But it didn't fit. Then I had something short and purple, which would have potential if I ever want to be a fairy (I already have purple wings), but I probably won't do that this year. The dress fit just fine, but I could still lose a few pounds if I actually want to look good in it. And then there was this red Chinese thing, which was just a bit large and had a defect that didn't even show when it was buttoned up. And I really wanted it, but in the end I decided that since I wasn't planning to wear it to anything specific this year, I should put it back. Besides, if the idea is to look like a character from Firefly, I think the shirt is light blue, not red.

I just wanted to try on a whole bunch of other stuff, just in case I ever go to a Shindig, but I decided not to. I'm probably not going to such a thing this year, and whatever I buy this year might not look good on me next year. So no Shindig dresses. I'm not altogether sure which direction I would go with the Shindig dress anyway. Would I want elegant or pretty ruffles? I can't decide.

So one item for a friend, and one little purple thing, and then there was this greenish blue dress that spoke to me. It made me think of a certain character on a TV show I've been watching, and with some minor fixing, I could wear it. The main thing is that I would need a matching bra and some good shoes. So I think that I might have found my Halloween costume after all, though not for the character I had originally planned.

Three costume pieces cost me eight dollars and some change. Nice.

From there we went to Town Talk, where we bought odd sodas and really awesome white chocolate and some brie and white cheddar. And some energy drinks. But, we did also manage to buy more than five pounds of rice at twenty-nine cents a pound, so it wasn't entirely luxury items.

On the way home we stopped at a Walmart. This isn't the same Walmart as Thursday, but I was hoping that they would have the same item on sale. I knew that they probably wouldn't, since it was probably a clearance sale and there doesn't seem to be an uniformity in clearance sales for Walmarts. So, I went in and found the item, or at least, it looked like the same item to me, but it was five dollars. At the other store, it had been two dollars marked down from four dollars. So how is it five here? I can understand that it would still be regular price instead of clearance price, but isn't the regular price four? I don't get it.

Anyway, after some slight begging and a stop at 7-11 for a cold drink, we went to the other Walmart so I could look for the clearance sale item. And, display I had seen on Thursday was gone, so they had probably sold all of them, but I went to have a look on the regular shelf space anyway. And there they were, or at least, I thought I'd found them, and they were five dollars. That didn't make sense. Thursday they had been two marked down from four, and now they were up to five? This didn't even make sense at a different store, but at the same store it really didn't make any sense.

I hoped the price was wrong and that it would somehow scan two dollars. I found a scanner, but it was five dollars. I took the item back to the shelf.

I really gave it a careful looking over. This is the same item, isn't it? I know that a lot of similar things end up not being the same price, but the same item being a different price? Was there anything different about this item and the item I bought on Thursday?

And then I noticed that the item had the barcode on the side, while as far as I could remember the item I purchased Thursday had the barcode on the bottom. I had a similar thing happen the day after Thanksgiving, when I went to buy some eight dollar jeans that looked exactly like some twenty dollar jeans, and I couldn't find any that scanned eight dollars, until I noticed some of the tags were in a different place.

So, I found three with the barcode on the bottom. These scanned two dollars each. I was happy. And, now that I knew what to look for, I found a few more.

I had gone into the store hoping to buy four, but after all of this trouble I decided to buy six. I would have bought six more, but I really do not like being totally without funds, and I couldn't see doing that again for another two weeks, especially since I haven't yet bought gas or the lottery tickets.

Anyway, now that I know what to look for, I will look again next time I'm in Walmart and I have some money.

So I went home tired but happy. We decided to rest for about an hour before we thought about the video. We did finally get the beginning of it done, and now I have to go and work on the project so that we can maybe film the end of the video tonight and then try the editing on Sunday.

Just a day or so behind schedule. And there's a little more shopping planned for today, but not much.

Getting ready to film

I went back to Walmart and got that fourth item. It was regular price. I guess with only three of them left it wasn't worth the effort of marking them down. I'm thinking that they will end up throwing the last two away.

While I was there I found something else that I wanted. I only had money to get one, but I wanted like a dozen. By the time I have money, they will probably be gone.

Today I expect to have some money, but not much, and of course we owe a lot and this won't even be enough to catch up. But it is always a relief to have some money.

In a few hours we should start filming. Actually, we filmed just a tiny bit yesterday. I had a closeup shot and a long shot. We will have to use the long shot. My neck looks just awful. I know that I don't look just perfect, cause I see myself in the mirror and I see myself in photos once in a while, but it has been a really long time since I have seen myself on video. So, that is what I really look like. No matter how great the body looks, there's that awful double chin.

Anyway, it is good that I thought to also have the long shot. And it will only be a few seconds of the finished product.

So we have off most of today to film the project in various stages, but I do have to do some other things. Like I have to go pick up my pills, and I have a few more errands to run. And I have to do most of the project, even though we will only be filming the beginning and the end of it. So that is a lot of work that I will have to do.

And it is supposed to rain today. So I have to film some of it before it rains, and then I have to do some more work on it and get it done even if it is raining, and then I have errands to run, and then I hope it will stop raining long enough to finish filming.

And then we will have most of tomorrow to figure out editing, which we have never done before.

The shopping was good Tuesday, so now we can start filming

What does one have to do with the other?

Well, I had wanted to try making a video to enter in the YouTube Twenty09 Challenge, which I learned about from reading David's blog. The idea is to show some really great thing that you could do with twenty dollars and nine cents. For instance, David is buying all of the food he's going to eat for the next twenty days with twenty dollars and nine cents.

I even got it into my head that I could make more than one video. I think the rules say that you can enter five videos. My problem with that being that for each video, I would be spending twenty dollars and nine cents, and that if I made five videos I would spending about a hundred dollars.

I don't have a hundred dollars.

So, I guess that I'm back to the idea of making one video. I had this idea that I was pretty happy with, and I started writing down what I should say and what we should take pictures of, etc....

And just when I was really starting to get into this, I discovered that I wasn't going to have twenty dollars and nine cents left over to buy this stuff to make the video.

So that was sad. I started trying to figure out another idea for a video, something that I could do with things that I had already bought, so that I didn't have to actually go out and spend twenty dollars and nine cents, just say that is the amount that I spent. So I had an idea for a second video, which I didn't like as much as the idea for the first video, cause it was very similar to another video, and I think that people already like that video and I wouldn't have a good chance of winning if I were in direct competition. But it is either make a video with stuff that I already bought, or give up on the idea entirely. So I started writing down what I would need to say in the second video.

And then I went shopping Tuesday. It was a long shot. A while back I had seen something that I wanted at Walmart for less money than what I had been paying at Home Depot. And I really didn't think anything about it. I just thought that Walmart was cheaper. I was in a hurry, and I didn't buy the stuff, I just made a mental note of it so I could come back later. Turns out the stuff was marked down for clearance, and that the regular price of the item is only eleven cents cheaper at Walmart than at Home Depot. Just that particular Walmart was trying to get rid of the item, and I couldn't even remember which Walmart I was in to go back and look to see if they had any left. I've just been going around looking at different Walmarts whenever I happen to be near one. I would either find the item at it's regular price, or I would find that the item had been marked down, but they were all gone.

So, I went to one more Walmart. I found the item, but there was no price on it. I asked an employee, but he didn't seem to know anything about prices, and he was busy moving things around. I went to look at other things. I had hoped to look at some Halloween stuff while I was out, but all they had was candy and t-shirts, no decorations yet. I looked at a few more things and then I was ready to leave.

On the way out, I saw that the item had been moved. This doesn't always mean that the item is on sale, but I thought that I would have a look anyway. The item had been moved next to another item that was on clearance for a dollar. And that was the only sign up, the one that said a dollar. Was the item I wanted also a dollar? It was normally three dollars and eighty-eight cents. The other item that was marked down was normally even more than that, so it wasn't impossible, just unlikely. I went to ask an employee for help. She said that the item probably was marked down to a dollar. She would go with me to the cashier and tell her it was a dollar.

So I grabbed three of the item. I needed four to make the video, but I was having trouble pushing the cart with just three. If the item turned out to be a dollar, I would make another trip and get the rest of them, even the ones I didn't need for the video. I think that there were only six or seven left anyway.

So we get to the cashier, and the item rings up at regular price. After a really friendly discussion, it was decided that the dollar sign should be taken down, and that I could buy the three that I had for a dollar each, but that I could not have the rest of the items unless I paid full price. I was happy with the three that I had. I paid and left. One of the employees watched my cart while I went to get my car.

I saved about nine dollars. I have most of the rest of what I need already at the house. I now need just one more of the item, which if I cannot find on clearance again I can buy at full price for about four dollars.

I think that I can handle four dollars. So I can make the first video, as soon as I go back and get one more of the item.

And I suppose that I can make the second video too, though I'm still thinking that it isn't as good of an idea as the first.

I think that I can start filming some of the video today, just to get started, and then maybe I can buy the item later today or tomorrow and film the rest of it this weekend.

This might actually be fun.