Christmas is cancelled

Okay, not really. Just toned down a bit. Maybe more than I would like.

I'll get back to that later.

In the last post I mentioned being worried about my husband's job. Really worried. But now all seems back to normal, or at least, as normal as it has been for the past few months. The middle management of the old company went to a meeting with the new company, and we all sort of thought that these managers would be told that most of them would no longer be needed. But instead they went to this meeting and mostly heard "welcome to the family" type stuff. The week after that my husband went to a meeting of the new company, which was run by the managers of the old company, and he didn't meet anyone from the new company that wasn't already working for the old one. So he signed the papers and such, and then went back to work as usual the next day.

We're still being told that nothing will change until 2012. We believe that, as there is only a few weeks left of 2011.

There is now a rumour that major changes are coming in March or April. We will see.

Anyway, while I was getting out cookbooks wondering what I could make with beans and rice and such as that, everything seems to be back to normal, and we have mostly returned to our previous spending habits.

While I was in the stage of really worrying about money, I asked to be less involved in gift exchanges than I was last year. This seemed to upset my mom a bit, but everyone else seemed okay with it.

In fact, my friends went so far as to say that we shouldn't exchange gifts at all, which was not what I was trying to do. I wanted to limit the gifts to small things, hopefully small things that I had bought earlier. Or maybe I would knit them all hats, or make them soap or baked goods. The person I thought would be most in favor of the soap or baked goods plan wasn't there for the discussion. The person who is most into the whole Christmas exchange thing wasn't there either. That left a couple who only wants to exchange cards, a guy who said he was going to be out of town the weekend we normally exchange gifts, and a girl who says she'd rather do the cards this year just because she's running out of ideas of what to get people.

So the gift exchange that I usually enjoy the most has become a card exchange, which wasn't what I meant to do at all. I hope that the other guy speaks up and says that he's already got something for me, so I would at least exchange gifts with one of them.

I've said that I would not do the charity thing this year. And I probably won't, even if the money situation is better. I'm just not that into it.

And that leaves my family, and my mom doesn't seem as upset as she did. We usually draw names and get one person something that's about thirty dollars. And then we also bring a five dollar gift for something that is usually called the Chinese gift exchange. (That's when someone opens a gift, and then maybe someone else "steals" it, and then the first person opens another gift.) The "stealing" bit is a lot of fun, but there are only six of us. My brother and I think that instead of drawing names for the thirty dollar gifts, we should each bring two of the five dollar gifts for the "stealing" bit. So that would save us all about twenty-five dollars and be more fun anyway. My brother thinks that we are all adults, and we don't really need the thirty dollars gifts, cause if those are things we really want we've probably already got them.

I think that he's right.

Anyway, when Black Friday came, I didn't have as much money as I would have liked to spend, but I didn't think that I had as much to buy either. I was only spending twenty or so on my family, and almost none on my friends, and none on the charity.

Still, for the past few years, I've been going to Walmart early on Black Friday to buy jeans (two or three three for myself), a small appliance (for myself), and several DVDs (some for the charity, some for friends and family, and some for myself). Except for the DVDs, there usually isn't that much on my Christmas list that is worth getting out at four or five in the morning for. But I've long had the tradition of buying stuff I needed for myself, like underwear and a crock pot.

Except for the toys, I wonder if anyone is actually buying the Black Friday stuff for other people. I mean, who gives away giant TVs for Christmas? And, if your family has enough money to give away giant TVs, is saving a hundred dollars or so worth standing in that really long line, possibly all night?

I do not have enough money for a giant TV, and on Black Friday I always wait at least an hour for the really crazy people to get done shopping. But if I ever did have the money for a giant TV and cared enough about it to wait in that long line to get it, the giant TV is going in my living room, and it's going to stay in my living room. I'm certainly not buying three or four TVs to give to friends and family.

Anyway, this year, I went to Walmart at five or so in the morning and found a mostly empty parking lot. I didn't need a small appliance, I couldn't find the jeans I wanted, so that only left looking through the DVDs.

I wish I'd had the money. I hadn't seen anything that interesting in the ad, but once I got there I found complete seasons of Supernatural, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe, Fringe, and The Big Bang Theory. If I had bought everything I wanted, that would have been about two hundred dollars, and that's before buying extras for friends. I didn't have two hundred dollars. I ended up spending about twenty, and I haven't yet decided if I will keep them or give them away.

Next I stood in line at Half Price Books, not quite an hour early, so that I could get a five dollar gift card and have a chance at getting $100. I didn't get the $100, but with the $5 and a coupon I got one of the Chinese exchange gifts.

Next, I bought calendars with coupons in them, a few dollar DVDs at Best Buy, and then headed to another Walmart. I found the jeans there and bought two. Again I looked at the DVDs, but didn't buy more. I had a bit of money left, but I just couldn't decide how to spend it. Which season of Supernatural is the best? Season two maybe? Is that better than any seasons of Stargate Atlantis? Or Fringe? I just couldn't choose.

I think that might be it for the Christmas shopping, except for one or two more Chinese exchange gifts, a gift card, some candy and other food, and maybe some yarn if I knit a few more things. I think I'm done.

This year is probably going to be dull.

I still have stuff to do

Saturday at the pilot's house was nice, and the following Sunday dinner with more of my friends was nice, and this past Saturday was also nice, though I did feel a bit rushed with the whole thing of having to be in Irving and then in Arlington and then yet another place in Arlington. Following that dinner some of the group went to see the Interlochen Christmas lights, but not me. Maybe my husband will offer to drive me tonight, since we didn't get to go to that other thing in Oklahoma.

Right.

Well, something interesting happened during the meeting Saturday. I was wearing a Slytherin scarf, and I got some comments the nice looking scarf. And one of my friends asked how much I would charge to make a scarf if she already had the yarn for it, and I had to tell her that the scarves are eighty dollars, and if she bought the yarn already it would still be about seventy dollars, cause it takes about seven or eight hours to make one. And she said okay, she'd think about it, which usually means no. And then I thought how this particular person is usually good with crafts and such herself, and I went back and suggested that maybe she could just pay me thirty dollars to do the three or four hours of work on the knitting machine, and then she could do the remaining work that did not require the machine, which still takes about four hours but requires no special equipment and is not brain surgery (or at least for her it would not be brain surgery). And she said that she'd think about that.

So right after that, this guy that I don't know very well was trying to ask me something. And it's a very noisy room with all of us having different conversations, and I couldn't make out what he was saying at first. He was asking if I had a Hufflepuff scarf.

Now, normally, I don't have a lot of scarves just already made waiting for someone to buy them. Normally, if you want to buy a scarf from me, you have to give me the details of what you want, and then I'll make you one and you can pay me when it's finished. And usually, after people hear that it's a minimum of eighty dollars, they lose interest anyway. But it did just so happen that last year I'd made one each of the scarves from the third or fourth Harry Potter film, and that I was going to give two away at a Christmas Party last year, which I figured that everyone would want either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw, but I also had Slytherin and Hufflepuff ready to go just in case someone wanted to trade. And as expected, no one at the party really wanted Slytherin or Hufflepuff, so I had them leftover. And it just also happened that I had both these scarves in the car (along with a few others) cause I had taken them somewhere to show someone else, and I just forgot and left them in the car. So when this guy asked about the Hufflepuff scarf, not only did I have one, but I was able to go out and get it for him, though I figured that he'd change his mind after hearing the price.

He didn't say that eighty dollars was too much, only that he didn't have that much with him. I let him look at the scarf while I talked to other people, and he said that he still wanted it, only he'd have to buy it some other time. And it was not a gift for someone else, he just wanted to wear the scarf himself, so he wanted to buy it before it got cold again. He asked if he could pay with PayPal.

Now, my husband has a PayPal account, and I certainly buy enough things with it, but I'd never before had anyone want to pay me with it, other than on eBay, so I didn't have all that information in my head. It certainly would have been possible, in the room with all those nerds and their smart phones, but I didn't have a clue how to go about it, and I couldn't get my husband to answer the phone (he was at someone else's house playing video games, but I'd forgotten and didn't try calling there). And this guy did not really live nearby, and he would probably lose interest if he had to wait another month to get his scarf. But we did manage to exchange emails and figure out a place to meet Sunday afternoon, and he has his scarf, and I have eighty dollars.

Or I did have eighty dollars. I've already spent some of it.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy about the whole thing. This is only the third time that someone has ordered a scarf and actually paid for it.

Okay, so I've bought some more supplies and will try again to make some ornaments, which will probably be a Christmas gift for K, though we will not be exchanging gifts until New Year's Eve, and it will be too late for him to use them this year. But he'll have them for next year. If that doesn't work I don't know what I'm going to give him, probably some homemade dessert, but he's said that he'd rather not have candy as he's already eaten way too much of the stuff and is starting to feel ill, and G already gave him (and the rest of us) cookies, so that's probably not a good idea either.

I'm still thinking that I might make a scarf for the pilot, but again that is something that won't be needed until New Year's Eve. There's still stuff that needs to be done by Friday. I need to get something for my brother in law (probably a gift card for a restaurant), I'm thinking of knitting three hats, and I need two $5 gifts for the Chinese gift exchange. Also I'm wondering if I should put a gift I recently got in a similar exchange in with my brother's gifts, or if I should just keep it. Cause as cute as it is, I don't really need a Star Wars computer mouse, but probably my brother doesn't either.

Okay, in order of things that need doing: buy gift card, buy two $5 gifts, make candy and maybe cookies, knit three hats, wrap gifts, make ornaments, knit scarf, and wrap more gifts.

I still haven't put up a tree.

Getting close now

Okay, as someone pointed out earlier in the comments to my last post, it now really is two weeks til Christmas. Not even two weeks now.

I'm screwed.

Okay, not really that bad, just it doesn't seem right either. There's still a bit of stuff to do, and I don't quite seem to get it through my head that the deadline for a lot of it is here. Like the day after tomorrow here. And like, there won't be time to do anything for it the day of the thing on Saturday, cause it needs to be done before lunch, and so I don't want to be rushing around trying to do anything then. And tomorrow I have plans for going to a movie and such, so except for shopping that I have put off until Friday knowing that I would be in the same general area, I shouldn't plan on having much time to do anything tomorrow.

Which means that a lot of it needs to get done today.

Okay, what I have done so far is buy and wrap some DVDs for the charity thing, and knit a scarf for the charity thing. I have started a knit hat for the charity thing, but a hat isn't something that I committed to, so if it doesn't get done I won't really worry too much about that. Also, I meant to do some ornaments for the charity thing, but again, that wasn't something that I committed to, so if it doesn't get done it is not really a big deal.

For the official gift exchange, I've almost decided on a Darth Vader ornament and a ten dollar gift certificate to Half-Price Books. The thing is that I'm always going to Half-Price Books and forgetting to get the gift card, or else putting it off on purpose til I'm sure of the amount. So now I've put it off and put it off again, and I need the thing before lunch Saturday, so I'd better remember to get it tomorrow. I could still go by and pick up the thing Saturday morning, but if I do that I'll have to wrap the gift in my car, which is possible (especially if I just put the thing in a gift bag) but I'd rather not. Besides, someone might see me.

That leaves the question of whether or not I'm getting a gift for K, or if I'm just getting him a card, or both.

Last weekend we went to dinner. The pilot had us over. Some of us thought it was just for dinner, some of us thought we were supposed to exchange gifts, and some of us thought that we were supposed to exchange cards but save the gifts for later. I had some of the stuff ready, and some not. So I was going to bring some, and print out IOUs for the rest on this nice holiday paper that seems made for just that purpose. I had a gift for G, a gift for D, and Miss Allergies gift was made last year and she already knows what it is. So I wrapped those and put them in the car. And then I was making cards, but I only got two of them done, so I decided to only give to J and R (who said card exchange only), and to the pilot (cause we were at his house and he made the dinner, plus I'm still not sure if his gift is going to work out). I started another one for K, but I'm having a bit of trouble with it, and it still isn't done. So K didn't get a card, and I found out that the gift I originally planned for him won't really work for this year. So I either need to figure out how to finish this card, or else maybe he can have fudge as a present, or maybe I'll knit him a hat.

Then besides the usual bunch there were two other people at the dinner, and I didn't get them a card or anything. I didn't know that they were coming until just a couple of days before, and I wasn't going to try to make them one of these cards (especially at the last minute like that), and I don't do cards usually anyway.

So it ended like this: the two other people gave me a card, and I didn't give them one, and some of the other people did not give them one either cause they either did not know they were coming or did not know that it was meant for us to exchange cards that day. Miss Allergies did not want to unwrap her gift, cause she hadn't brought mine and she wants us to exchange gifts at the same time, so it remained in the car. I gave D her gift, because while we usually exchange gifts we usually are not together the day we exchange gifts, so the gifts are exchanged through messenger service (the pilot). And I wanted to see her open her gift for a change, so I did. And then G was getting the same gift (a Gryffindor scarf), which I thought that she might want to wear to the charity thing, so I went ahead and gave it to her then. I gave one card to J and R, and one card to the pilot. The pilot seemed to really like the card, and he probably thinks that is all he's getting, so he went and gave me the gifts he'd bought for me, though he's saving everyone else for later. And that left K, and I did not even give him an IOU, cause then I thought that the two extra people would wonder why they didn't get anything, not even an IOU, when everyone else got something. So poor K probably thinks that he isn't getting anything.

I really need to finish that card.

Anyway, everything is weekend is screwed up. The charity thing is supposed to be on the Sunday after the Saturday of the meeting. That way, the people not going to the charity thing themselves can still give things to the charity, and we gather all the stuff together on Saturday. There were two problems with that this year. The charity family is going out of town, and they want to start driving on Sunday morning, so they don't want to wait around for us to stop by Sunday afternoon.

The other problem is the damned Cowboys are ruining my life. We were told that going to the charity family's home would not be a good idea, as they live in a trailer, and there are other problems with that we'd really rather not deal with. So it was decided to meet at the apartment of a relative, and the apartment is on Fielder. The stadium is on Collins. Fielder is a major street that parallels Collins, but there are other streets in between them, like Cooper, so I would have thought that Fielder might have some traffic problems before and after the game, but not during. But apparently people will park their cars as far away as that and walk to the stadium rather than pay for parking, so we were told that Sunday would be a bad day to be in the area because of a noon game, even at 2 or 3 as far away as Fielder.

I am not in anyway someone who helps plan this charity thing. In fact, I'm just not that into the charity thing at all, I just sort of feel bad if I don't participate at all while other people are going out and buying really nice things for them. But I don't see how it gets to be this difficult and this complicated. Find us someone who wants free stuff, but not too much, who wants people in their home for a few minutes on the Sunday after the third Saturday of December. (And now add don't have them live anywhere near the stadium if the Cowboys have a home game that day). Is it really that difficult. Find someone who doesn't have much, likes people in costumes, and wants a little bit of free stuff.

Anyway, that is all the stuff that I need to get done for this weekend. And then there is Christmas Eve. And then there's a bit more for New Year's Eve.

I don't even have a tree up.

Christmas is two weeks away

Okay, so if you've seen a calender recently, you know that Christmas isn't really two weeks away. It just suddenly seems that way to me.

My family has decided to cut back a bit on Christmas, so that we mainly buy one nice thing for one person, after we draw names out of a hat. And then we also buy a smaller gift, but we don't know who will get the smaller gift. So the spending limit with tax and everything ends up being just a bit under forty dollars per person, and should only require the one shopping trip. And all that is just fine, and I have most of a month to get that done.

It's the rest of it that I'm unsure about, and a lot of it I need to get done in the next two weeks.

Okay, so there's a group of friends who usually try to do things together two or three times a month. Due to not having a job and the price of gas and some other things, I rarely make it more than once a month now. Once in a great while, the pilot has us over for dinner. And, usually on the third Saturday of December, we exchange gifts. And this is in addition to the official gift exchange at the club, which is also on the that same Saturday.

It probably started when I opened my big mouth and asked the pilot if he was having one of his dinners in November, after I was looking at something and noticed that he'd had a dinner at that time last year. Now, I was not meaning to invite myself over for dinner, just that I was trying to schedule a few things, and I wanted to know if there was a dinner in November that I needed to to keep a certain date open for and not go out of town that week and such. So what he said was that he had meant to have a dinner in November, but this year it just wasn't going to work out, and he wondered if we wouldn't keeping open a Saturday in December for that instead. So now dinner with my friends is scheduled for the second Saturday in December at the pilot's house. So I asked if we should exchange gifts then instead of on the third Saturday like we usually did. At the time I did not have a preference, I just wanted to know.

At that point someone mentioned something about exchanging cards instead of gifts, cause some of us are short on cash, and most of us really don't want to spend that much time in the mall anyway. We had discussed doing this last year too, but we didn't really discuss it early enough for me, and I was already knitting things for two of them. And I didn't want to just exchange cards after I was already either buying or knitting things for some of them. And then I wasn't sure if I should just give the gifts I already had planned and give the others just cards. That didn't seem fair at all. So we ended up having the regular gift exchange and decided to talk about just exchanging cards the next year.

And really, I don't exchange cards. This comes from a time when I really had no money, and I watched other people spend more on the cards than I had in my whole Christmas budget. So with me you either get a gift, or you don't get anything. Even when I didn't have money I gave candy or small fruit baskets or candles or some homemade thing rather than exchanging cards. This means that I have a small list of people, and that there are a lot of people giving me cards when I don't give them anything, but I just can't spend time or effort or money on cards.

Okay, so G brought up the whole gift or card discussion, and everyone else jumped in, and for the most part people said cards were better. The exception being Miss Allergies, cause she picked out what she wanted from me last year, and so I put a certain scarf aside for her. R and J want to exchange cards, K also voted for cards, and the pilot said something about making cards, and G is in favor of either cards or baked goods.

I like baked goods.

Okay, so having heard that we would be mostly exchanging either cards or baked goods with most of these people on the third Saturday (except for Miss Allergies' gift which is already done), I mostly put the idea out of my mind. While I probably won't do cards, I had plenty of time to do small gifts or figure out baked goods or whatever else I might do.

The pilot is now saying that he has cards, but he also found a few gifts....

Okay, so I've been wanting to make him a certain scarf, and I will try again this year, though it might not work out. Also I've heard that K is now leaning towards gift exchange. That's fine, though at the moment I'm not sure what I would get him, as I gave him the handmade scarf last year and a different scarf another year, and even if I had the time he doesn't need yet another scarf. So far as I know, R and J still want to exchange cards, so I will get them something small or baked goods, and I will get something for G that would either be baked goods or something like that.

And then after looking at the schedule, there is something going on with R and J on the third Saturday, which makes me think that we'll end up exchanging gifts or cards or whatever on the second Saturday.

And this means that for the most part, I have only two weeks to do the Christmas stuff, whatever that will be.

For the official gift exchange, I still have until the third Saturday, or I can even decide not to participate. And for my family I still have until Christmas Eve.

Except that last year there was also this extended family Christmas party, and while I haven't heard that it is planned again this year, I was thinking that I should make a couple more scarves, just in case. And also I would like to make another scarf for this charity thing, which would also be due on the third Saturday.

While it slowly dawns on me that I have a lot to do in the next two or three weeks, my husband mentions going out of town. I hadn't really planned on it. In fact, I hadn't really thought about it at all. He's going to the middle of nowhere a bit north of here for two or three days, then has a day off on which he will have to move to another place also a bit north of here for another three or four days. If I had planned on it, I would have had knitting and such ready to go, but I hadn't planned on it. Middle of nowhere and all of that, and I didn't think that there was anything for us to do there. Only he found some Christmas light display between the two places, and he was thinking that we could go see it.

Now that I've looked it up, I don't think that they allow visitors on that day. It was nice of him to think of it, but probably I should not go. The house is a mess and all of that, plus that would leave all this leftover turkey to rot in the frig.

I don't want the turkey to rot. I want to make stuff with it and eat it.

There are plenty of Christmas light displays here, but for whatever reason, he never seems that interested in going to see them.

Okay, so I have a very messy house to clean, and a lot of knitting to do, and then probably more shopping and practice baking to do. Going out of town is probably not the best idea.

I wish that I had planned better.

Happy Thanksgiving

Okay, so it's six something in the morning, and I'm wondering if it is too early to get in line at the cafeteria.

Probably.

Anyway, despite there being like four turkeys between us, we've decided that we will eat out, probably at Furr's, though I probably haven't been to Furr's in years and don't know what to expect, other than some really long lines. There will only be four of us, as the rest of our group have made other plans with in-laws and such. Mom isn't much into the cooking and such anymore, and this year in particular she just doesn't feel up to it. Either my brother or I could do the turkey itself (I see no problem just doing a very basic turkey and had already made one for myself, and my brother had other ideas and practiced two of them early this month), nobody is quite up to making mom's stuffing (or grandma's stuffing, depending on how you look at it), and while I like a plain basic turkey to make other things with, it isn't much of a Thanksgiving turkey without mom's stuffing. Also missing is grandma's (other grandma) potato salad and a number of other things. So it would have been my brother making a turkey and me attempting stuffing and potato salad, and then not much else interesting, and mom didn't seem that interested in the turkey anyway.

Still, I think my brother did an excellent job on the two practice turkeys, though one of them did turn out too salty. But, then, that is the point of doing practice turkeys, so you can figure out that kind of thing.

I was just this close to buying a roaster this year, cause I'd heard that it could also be used as a slow cooker. But then I heard that a.) this isn't really a good idea, and b.) the roaster that was on sale was not digital, which means that it wouldn't automatically switch to warm after it finishes cooking. So I did not get one, though I might look again. But I did find a rack that folds up when you're done, and it fits in the cheap aluminum pans, which I like cause I can be lazy and toss when I'm done with them. And I really don't have room for a roaster anyway, which I suppose is the reason I did not buy one some previous year.

Later I will be looking over the ads, but as far as I can tell I really only want one thing and from one store. Or, rather, I only want the one type of thing, and the big sale is at one store. The last few years I've gone to Walmart to get jeans for myself, and try to get a few other things, and while I'm there I look through the sale DVDs. Anyway, this year I did not lose any weight, I gained the weight back somewhat, which means that I probably don't need any jeans because I'm wearing those that I bought a year and two ago, and if I lose a bit of weight I'll be wearing the jeans that I bought last time. So now I have to decide if I want to maybe buy just one pair just in case I should lose more than that.

I really don't want to buy any larger clothes just in case I gain. My husband is planning some sort of diet the first six weeks of the new year. Not that he's really planning to lose weight, just that he's thinking he should get a few things out of his diet. This would be a good time to go on a diet too, though not the same diet. I want a lose weight diet. I want to look pretty and maybe have lower blood pressure. But, if I go on a diet while he's doing his thing, at least for the first six weeks I won't have him constantly suggesting that we go out for ice cream and such.

Anyway, without needing to buy jeans, I don't have much excuse for going out early Friday morning, except for buying DVDs. I'm wondering if I'm going to buy that many, or if maybe I should just try to get them online. Other than that, I'm thinking of going to Half Price Books, and I've heard that Racetrac has free coffee. I don't have any plans to camp out in hopes of getting a TV or any of that.

Lately I've been trying to find a certain diet cookbook. I don't know why. I don't need another diet cookbook, I probably just need to take one I already have on the shelf and cook stuff. But, I saw this one, and I keep bidding on it on ebay. But I don't want to bid much more than five dollars (cause with say ten dollars and shipping, I might as well just buy the book new in the store), so I don't have the thing. And then I had the idea of borrowing one at the library, cause I might not even like it that much, but for some reason I can't get the computer and the library computer to talk to each other. I already know that the two libraries I use most don't have it, but if I really want something I go to Fort Worth, which is a bit of a drive, and I'd rather not go all the way there if I'm only going to look for a book that the computer won't even tell me if they have.

That's enough for now. I'll probably post again later.

I have been lazy

I guess that is nothing new. But I can't seem to get much done, and I get even less done when my husband is around, which is pretty much all of the time now.

The people who run the company my husband works for are about to do something that most of us think is pretty stupid. I won't get into it much here, because it deserves its own post, but let's just say that they are going to change things in such a way that either they will have to have to fire half of the sales people or hire a bunch of other people so that everybody can work in pairs instead of how they work now. If they fire half of the salespeople (the half that never make any money anyway) that would be good for my husband. But they rarely fire anyone, they just make things annoying so that people will want to quit. So that probably means that they will hire a bunch of extra people, and as it is they don't have enough work for the employees that they already have.

So this is bad.

I will have jury duty next month, and I have to schedule a few things so that they don't interfere if I get picked to be on a jury. Not that I expect to get picked, cause I never have been picked before, but I think that I should try to be ready just in case. I should set deadlines for myself, so that I have a lot of stuff done by the middle of next month. It would be nice if I didn't have anything major to do in April. I keep talking about all that I need to do, but I never get started with it. Something always comes up.

In the few moments that I did feel like I could get something done, I started painting that scrap lumber I bought recently. I have a few pieces left to do, but I'll probably finish with that today. Other than that I managed to finish the pilot's Christmas gift attempt number three, which looks nothing like the other two, but he made a suggestion for something he would like and that gave me an idea for something else. So hopefully I will show it to him on Saturday and see if it meets with his approval.

And while I was briefly doing useful stuff, I thought that I would go through a couple of boxes of stuff, thinking that I would take three or four things out of the box and want to get rid of the rest of it. And it turned out to be the other way around, with my getting rid of three or four things and then putting the box back where it was.

There is this theory that if you put something in a box and don't use it for a year that you don't need or want it and that you should get rid of it. Except that I can't seem to get that to work for me. For one thing, seasonal stuff goes in boxes that don't get opened except for once a year, and if you are busy during that season the boxes don't get opened that year at all. But that doesn't mean that the stuff in the box is unwanted, just that you didn't feel up to the whole seasonal decorating thing that year. The decorations will still be good for next year. I can't see any reason for getting rid of the decorations, unless maybe a person has suffered a crippling injury and will never be able to put up the decorations in the future, or maybe if the person becomes Mr. Scrooge and doesn't like holidays anymore. So I have just stacks and stacks of those boxes, and I have no intention of getting rid of them.

Same with the craft stuff. Just cause I didn't do ceramics this year is no reason to get rid of the stuff. Soon I'll be old and I'll join the senior center and do ceramics there.

Okay, the senior center is still years away. Just not as many years away as before. Anyway, the craft stuff stays.

It is the other boxes of odd things that bother me. I would think that stuff should be gotten rid of if I haven't used it in a year. Except that it turns out the main reason I didn't use it all year is that I forgot where I put it. Now that I've found it, getting rid of it doesn't seem like such a good idea.

Like I found one of those cookie sheets that I misplaced. Not that it was in this box, but still, I found a cookie sheet. Maybe I will get back to the whole cookie making thing soon.

Anyway, so I went through this box of stuff, thinking that I was going to get rid of most of a box of stuff, and I just ended up with a slightly lighter box of stuff. And then I also went through a box of paperback books, thinking that I would want to get rid of most of them since I don't read much anymore, but of course the box contained those few books that I would actually want to re-read if my eyes felt better. In fact, I've pulled out a few to re-read anyway. So I still have most of a box of books, though I did find that I had two copies of a certain book, and I have decided that I probably won't re-read the Joy Adamson stuff, and I don't think I will be re-reading this Blake 7 book. Watching Blake 7 is one thing, but taking the time to read it is something else entirely. And how many years has it been since I've given any thought to Blake 7 anyway?

Saturday, I will try to find good homes for these six paperbacks, otherwise they can go in another box that will eventually end up going to Half-Price Books. The rest of the books went back in the box.

But it isn't really the stuff in boxes that bothers me, it is all this other stuff. I have boxes of stuff, and I have books and art on the shelves, and then there is all this other stuff. If it doesn't go on the shelves and it isn't a book and it doesn't go in a seasonal box and it doesn't go in a craft box, where is it supposed to go?

The snow is melting.

I think the official snowfall for the area was 12.5 inches, with the previous record for the area being 12.1 inches in 1964. I don't think that there was actually that much snow in my yard, but there was a lot.

The snow in my yard is already starting to melt, while most of my neighbors still have a solid blanket of white outside. We think that is has something to do with our having green plants (weeds), while most everyone else has dormant grass. We have seen a few other places with green grass next to otherwise solid white areas. And there is a snowman at the corner, and another one on the next street over. The snowmen are a bit odd looking. Obviously none of us know how to make one.

My husband seems quite obsessed with the fallen tree branch in our front yard. Someone helped him mostly pull it out of the street when we first found it. That was not to his liking, and he has twice moved it a bit more by himself. He keeps wanting to go to the office to get someone to cut it up or haul it away. I wanted to stay in, and I think that they were busy doing other things anyway. Yesterday he wanted to go to the office again. Yesterday was Saturday, and there's no one in the office on Saturday. It can wait til Monday. In fact, now that it is out of the street, it can wait indefinitely. What is the big deal about a tree branch? Other people around here have to deal with having no power, or leaking roofs, or broken windows, or damage to their cars. Leave the branch alone. Either the maintenance people will come and deal with it next week, or it can just stay there for a while. It isn't even touching the house. It isn't a problem.

Well, he worked on Tuesday as scheduled, had Wednesday off because as usual there isn't enough work to go around, had Thursday's job cancelled because of the snow, had Friday's job cancelled because of the snow, ended up working at a different place on Friday cause someone else got stuck in the snow, got to come home early on Friday cause even though that particular job wasn't cancelled on Friday most of the customers decided to cancel anyway, and then he didn't go to work on Saturday cause even though the roads were now mostly okay to drive on the job had already been cancelled. This week should be almost back to normal, and he is scheduled to work four days.

I am still wondering if they will postpone that scheduled power outage yet again. I will do a lot of cooking on Monday, just in case it is still on. I have heard that most of the stuff in the freezer will be okay, but I'll have to throw out a lot of stuff from the fridge. Of course, it is about time to clean out the fridge anyway.

I have received a jury summons. Contrary to popular belief, I do not have the answer to getting out of jury duty. Not that I'm going to try this time, I think that it is one of those that pays forty dollars a day, and I might as well get it over with next month. I'm a little concerned with the instructions I received. It says something about no electronic devices. That doesn't mean cell phones, does it? Surely they don't expect us to find our way to the courthouse and such without our cell phones.

Saturday we went out to lunch at Cheddars. After all the giggling we did when we were on the road and heard about people waiting hours to get into the place cause it was new, we actually like the one here, though it does not take hours to get in. Having been mostly stuck in the house for days, we decided just to go where we wanted to go instead of looking for coupons and such. We will call it an early Valentine's Day dinner.

I bought some more scrap lumber. So now I have quite a stack of it, though it looks like it will be a while before I can paint it and otherwise do anything with it.

Sunday we went out again. My whole front yard is now melted except for a couple of snowballs. Other people still have a lot of snow or not. And there are a lot of places that only have snow where someone tried to make a snowman or an igloo or something. Big mounds of snow here and there on an otherwise melted yard or field.

After having the nice lunch on Saturday, Sunday evening we just went to Whataburger for some buy one buy one free deal available only to people who had nothing better to do than go to Whataburger for dinner on Valentine's Day. After that we went to the grocery store, and then mostly couldn't remember what we were going to buy since we were trying not to buy anything that needed to be put in the fridge. Then we got a couple of DVDs from Redbox and went home.

Okay, not very exciting. It was just good to get out for a bit.

February is here

Today is the beginning of the month that I like the least. It is cold and sometimes dark. The days are short and the nights are long and all of that. It is often cloudy. If there is going to be some awful weather, a freeze that keeps us indoors for days, it is most likely to happen either at the end of January or in February.

I suppose that everything has its good points and its bad points, and while I can think of plenty of bad points, I have trouble coming up with anything good about February. There is Valentine's Day, but as don't have a new boyfriend, and I am no longer a child who likes cutting out paper and decorating boxes and such, the holiday is not any big deal to me. And there used to be someone's birthday in February, but that person isn't here anymore.

In the past few years, the only thing that I might have to look forward to in February is that we might go far away on business. We would cross our fingers for southern California, but ended up in Phoenix or Tuscon (and Tuscon would not be a bad place to be in winter, except for that damned rock show). I think that our one day in Las Vegas was in February, and the only time I remember being in Florida was in a February. In our own State we probably spent some time in Corpus Christi and South Padre Island.

Of course not all of the business travel in February has been pleasant, just when we went someplace south. There was also a snow covered trip to Kansas, and we found out that some places in northern Arizona are rather dangerous in winter.

Business has not been good lately, and I expect no grand travel, and if there is travel it would probably be north.

This year will be just a little bit different, as a party has been added, and if it is a success it will become an annual event. And there is the chocolate contest at the club, but I rarely participate in that, and this year's attempt at cookie making wasn't so good, so I probably won't be attempting anything grand this year either.

I think that the best thing about February is when it is over. It is rather like Wednesday being hump day, like once you get past it you believe that everything will probably get better.

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.

I have no plans

Usually at this time of year people make resolutions and decide what they want to be different in the future. They want to go on a diet, they want to go back to school, they want to give up smoking, they want to give up some other bad habit, they want to redecorate the house, they want to be more organized, etc.... I would guess that the majority of us are in some major group like going on a diet or quit smoking, so we would have a lot of company. And we will also have a lot of company when we fail.

Having had the same plans for several years now, I'm afraid I don't even much see the point of making the plans to begin with.

I have looked back over my blog and seen all the times that I've almost gotten this or that room cleaned, or this or that organized, and it this rate I should have it all done in a month or less. Except that it never actually gets done, not all at once, and whatever part did get done is soon back to it's usual state.

And the dieting never works out, except for the one time that I had the house all to myself for several months, and another time that I was just too upset to eat much of anything. So I had dramatic weight loss twice, though only one of those times actually counts as dieting or good eating habits. The other just happened, and I would rather not have it happen again.

As for the smoking, I have never had a cigarette, so I have never had to stop smoking. That must be a hard one, like giving up caffeine, which I try once in a while but never stick to.

As for the usual stuff that has been bothering me for the past several years, no, I am not over it, and I do not really feel better about it. I just have for a time given up on the idea that I can do anything about it. There may be a smile on my face, but the inside of my head is constantly screaming. And no one seems to notice. And it is better that way, that no one seems to notice, because when I am pretending to be alright I at least feel well enough to get out of bed most days and knit or something. I couldn't do that if my outside appearance reflected my inner thoughts.

But I had better soon work on my outside appearance as well. I'm getting zits on my face again, so it is time to go an buy some ProActive. And I do not care for the rest of my appearance either, although my a** still seems to be shrinking. I wear size ten jeans, and I even have a pair of size eight that I can get into sometimes, but I have not lost weight and I do not look any better. I am sure that there is some trick to it, like the people who make the jeans are marking the wrong size so that we will think we have lost weight and buy more clothes. But the scale does not indicate any actual weight loss, and I do not look or feel any better. I just have to buy smaller jeans once in a while.

The appearance of the house is really bad. The living room and dining room look like something from the hoarders show. This is partially the usual stuff, and partially the Christmas shopping and wrapping stuff. There are boxes tossed here and there while I look for something the right size to wrap this thing in, and then I've lost a roll of tape and toss things around while I look for that, and then when I find some tape I can't find ribbon, and so on...

I guess that I can start with that. The Christmas clearance shopping (if I do more of that) will be mostly done today or tomorrow, and I should start putting all of this stuff away. And I can throw away all of these boxes (or at least most of them) that I have been holding on to just in case I needed them to wrap presents.

And in spite of my feelings that the dieting won't work any better this year than it did last year, I really should try to do something about it. Only it is already a few days into the new year, and I haven't even made any plans. Not that I have plans that I haven't followed through on, just that I haven't even made any plans. So that is unusual. I usually have some plan but feel like I have to wait for something to happen before I get started. This year, I haven't even decided how to start.

And I probably will not come up with any plans today either. My only plans for today are knitting (as I have had to start over with the scarf that I meant to give to the pilot for Christmas), and possibly going to Target to see how much Christmas stuff is left.

Smoke gets in your eyes, and in your hair...

...and of course it gets in your lungs. Smoke inhalation. What fun.

Okay, so my friends have this New Year's Eve party, which I have been going to since 1999, and was going on for several years before I started going. At this party just after midnight, there are fireworks. Fireworks in this particular area are illegal, except for a few public shows that are usually on the 4th of July. I am not sure which fireworks get you into trouble, so I would prefer that we didn't use any at all, but I am in the minority, and the tradition continues. At some point in the past, there was an accidental fire. Not a very big fire, and it was very quickly put out, but ever since then it has been part of the tradition to purposely set fire to the grass, and then have the owner of the house come out with a hose and put it out.

Usually nothing exciting happens, but one time there was this accident that everyone else claims never happened. So I would have thought that would have been the end of that part of the tradition, but the next year there were again fireworks and parts of the grass set on fire, etc.... The only year that there were no fireworks or fire there was a drought, and we got all sorts of glow in the dark toys to play with instead rather than risk having something serious happen.

So this year we had just had snow and rain and then more snow and rain, so the ground wasn't dry. Then, just to be on the safe side, the owner of the house went out with the hose and made sure the ground really got soaked. That grass just was not going to burn.

Determined to have their fire, some of the guests brought a box of shredded paper from work. So we did have a fire, and quite a bit of it for a while, but the grass next to it did not burn. So there was a fire, and there were fireworks, and there were women jumping over the burning shredded paper, and there were men jumping over the fireworks.

And there was a lot of smoke. At some point you couldn't see very well, and these men jumping over the fireworks just ran into each other.

It seemed to me that the house was more crowded than usual. There were my friends, and people I don't know who are related to the owner of the house, and more people I don't know who are friends of the family. And a somewhat confused cat, who didn't know why there were all of these people in his house.

In theory we watch movies at this party, but I didn't. There were either movies that I had no interest in or movies that I saw two weeks ago at the last movie thing. And there was a lot of eating, though I didn't think that I had eaten so many desserts that I would make myself sick.

Then there was this really disappointing discussion, which I won't get into right now, but I really must get a new set of friends. At this point I don't think that anyone in this little group shares my beliefs about much of anything.

And it was way past my bedtime, and I was wondering why I felt so bad, and why I was still at the party when I felt so bad. So I got my things and left, and someone made sure I got to my car okay. And I got the car warmed up and such, and then I remembered why I felt so bad. The night before I'd felt a little sick and ended up getting up a couple hours earlier than usual, which is already two or three hours earlier than I would like. So by the time I got home I had been awake about twenty-four hours, and I had been up trying to do stuff for most of that time.

My husband usually gets home before I do, but not this year.

And then I woke up a few hours later, and the room was spinning. The room continued to spin for most of the day. I hadn't felt that bad the year before, and thinking I would feel about the same I had made plans to go shopping, but that didn't happen. I spent the whole day in bed, mostly watching Stargate.

Yesterday I did make myself get up, and felt somewhat better. We went shopping, though the sales we mostly over and I wasn't that interested in the shopping anyway. But I had to get up and do something.

I get confused. I think today is Sunday, though I spent much of yesterday thinking that it was either Sunday or Monday.

I still don't feel great, but soon I must make an effort to get back to the usual stuff.

End of the year

Yesterday I went to Target for the 75% off clearance sale. Not that I bought much. I went to the nearest store and to the Cedar Hill location. Last year there were some stores that had the sale on the 31st, but mine started on the 30th. I had this theory that it might be a Dallas vs. Tarrant county thing that explained the difference. I should have gone to Arlington to test the theory, but I decided that I wasn't going to buy that much anyway. In fact, I decided not to go this morning either. Even if I found just tons of stuff that I wanted, I don't have much money left, and I can't picture there being tons of stuff that I want anyway.

Still, when the 90% off sale gets here, I will probably have another look, just in case.

So the party is a few hours away, but I can't seem to get that excited about it. I am sure that I will be quite happy once I get there, but right now I'm just really wishing that I could just take a nap. But I am not yet tired, and it is not time for sleep, though right in the middle of the party it will be.

So that sucks.

Truthfully, the thing that I am most looking forward to is giving the completed scarf to Miss Allergies. That is, I plan to give her the scarf at the party, assuming that she will actually make it to the party.

The other scarf, I will have to completely start over tomorrow or the next day. I have set up the machine and sketched out a few changes to the design, but mostly I have just changed to a slightly different color yarn, so that I can be sure of being able to buy more if I should run out of yarn again. It would have been nice to have that scarf done before tonight, as we will all be out in the dark anyway, but it just didn't seem to work out that way.

Maybe it will turn out to be a better looking scarf. And I have about two and a half weeks to work on it before the next time I will see my friends again, so maybe it will get done by then.

I suppose that I will go and watch more Stargate.

Happy New Year everyone.

Trying to make plans

Well, my husband will be gone for a week, and I have stuff that I need to do, and I had better do it. So I should not waste time on the computer and such. I have knitting to do and cleaning to do, and there are deadlines. One Christmas get-together on the 13th, and another on the 19th, and probably stuff to do with my family on the 24th, and maybe someplace to be on the 22nd or the 23rd, and something else to do on the 12th if I have the time. I need to finish Miss Allergies scarf and get started on the pilot's gift and get something for G and finish up with the gifts for R and K. I need to put fringe on scarves that I have already made and probably try to squeeze in two more scarves before the 13th.

And most of that stuff needs to be done this week, because there are plans for next week. I am planning to go out of town Sunday, and I plan to be gone til that Wednesday, if not longer. And that won't leave a lot of time for knitting or cleaning or anything else if I have to get stuff done before the 13th, and other stuff done before the 19th.

And then I still don't know what gifts I will need before the 24th, so I will probably still have stuff to do even after the 19th.

Anyway, on Sunday I hope to be out of the house for a few days. As usual, most of the time will be spent in a motel room watching cable, but there are other plans. We will be going to a place that used to be special to us, but we have been there so many times that after a while going there is no big deal. We have done most of the stuff there is to do and seen what there is to see. If it costs money we probably don't bother with it anymore. I have a couple of friends there that I don't even visit, cause I just don't want to have to explain what has happened, and I really don't know how to have the catching up conversation without getting into it. So there is this place that used to be very special, and then was sort of special, and then was sort of old hat.

But it was still an excuse to get out of the house for a while.

And while I was debating on whether or not I should go this trip, my husband really started to get into the idea of making this a nice trip. While we have already been to all the places in the area that we would really care about, I don't think that we have been in the area much around Christmas, and there are several places that we have not been at night, and so that would really be nice to see.

Of course that is next week, and this week Grandma is coming home, though I don't know what day. I had planned to help out some, even if I don't take the "job", and now I am planing to go out of town on the 6th.

So I'm sure that my mother isn't going to be happy about that.

This is one of the reasons that I don't want the "job", though it certainly isn't the main reason. But if I had a regular job and I needed the day off or if I wanted to go away for a few days, there would be a way for me to do that. I might not aways get the day off that I wanted, and I might not be able to go out of town during a particular week or month, but there would be a way to get someone else to cover for me for short periods of time, and there would be someone else who could do the work on my day off, if there was even anything that needed to be done on my day off. My mother has so far not even been able to tell me what hours I would have this "job", or what would be my day off, or what would happen on a day that I get sick, or what would happen if there is ice on the road and I can't drive, or if someone else could take over for a few days if I just needed a break.

I am afraid that my mother is going to try to talk me out of going out of town Sunday. And then the "job" will probably not work out, and after a week or two they will have to make other arrangements, and I'll have missed out on the trip for nothing.

And of course if I am going to go on this trip I need to get the house cleaned before Sunday anyway. In addition to the knitting and the usual stuff that needs to be done.

I am tired just thinking about it. I would like to go back to bed now.

Sorry, I've been busy, sort of

It has been pointed out to me that I haven't blogged in a while, and if I don't blog and I don't write long emails to individual people, how are my few remaining readers supposed to know if I'm okay?

So, I'm okay. Or, at least, I'm as close to what now passes for okay as I tend to be.

My husband had steady work for a bit, but this week he doesn't work until Friday. And he will soon be laid off for about a month if things go as last year. So that isn't good. We are trying to do pleasant things with his almost week off. We had one last nice dinner out at Campo Verde, where I tried to figure out how I might copy something. And anyway, you have to go to the place at least once during November or December, when they put up extra Christmas stuff in addition to the thousands of Christmas lights that they have up all year.

Until further notice, we have to stop going out, and he doesn't do much cooking himself, and he needs more calories than soup and such that I like to make. The one thing that he does like to do is make pizza, so we spent seventy dollars on groceries, some of that being a turkey, and some of that being cheese and stuff for pizza.

Some of that was also potato chips and such that he probably doesn't need, but I never can really convince him that potato chips are not a necessity. On my part, the variety pack of Tang wasn't a necessity either. But most of the other stuff wasn't an unreasonable splurge, and we did get some things that we really like and maybe that will keep us from missing restaurants too much. And we did remember to get stuff like soap too. Except for veggies and milk and eggs, we shouldn't have to buy much for a while.

For the person I confused by saying that I would be spending Thanksgiving with G, I meant Uncle G, so I hope that clears that up. Uncle G's second wife is an angel, though I still can't quite wrap my head around the idea that Uncle G actually got a divorce. We just don't do that, except in the most extreme circumstances, and I just can't picture that of Aunt S. Not that I was best buddies with Aunt S, but it still seems strange that she was Aunt S for all of those decades, and then a few years ago they signed some papers, and then Aunt S was just S, and then a year or so later I got a new aunt. Weird.

So I expect Thanksgiving to be nice, as we have in the past spent Christmas with Uncle G and the new aunt, and she is very friendly in addition to being a good cook. Since Dad died Thanksgiving has not been too great, and half of the time my sister is with her in-laws and it just isn't that great at all. So this year it is actually something to look forward to. And it is next week, I think.

And then comes Christmas, and despite all of my plans last year, I am not ready. In fact, I do not even remember what all of those plans were. I knew that I probably would not have money for Christmas presents (though I had no idea it would be this bad), and I knew that if I wanted to do gift exchanges with as many people as last year that I would have to plan ahead and mostly give things that I had made for them, and that I wouldn't have the time unless I made them well in advance.

So I went out and bought all these supplies. And I remember buying the supplies, and I even remember where I stored most of them. But I just don't remember what I planned to do with them.

So of course I did not make any of the Christmas presents ahead of time. I am currently working on a scarf which I had planned to give to Miss Allergies, but I have only just a couple of days ago taken it off of the machine, and there is still a lot of work to be done by hand, in addition to the normal four hours it takes to finish up a scarf. And, I have made some mistakes and I must find some way of covering that up as I have no way of actually fixing it. I also had something planned for the pilot, but I am waiting on some supplies to come in the mail. There is something that I usually get for another friend, whether or not she decides to get me anything, except that I usually get it in the summer when it is on sale and put it away, but I didn't have the money to do that this year. So I don't really have anything for her, and she has pretty much announced that she plans to give most of us baked goods.

Now, if you remember watching The Big Bang Theory last Christmas (click here to see Sheldon's Greatest Christmas minisode on YouTube), you might recall Sheldon's description of traditional Saturnalia gift giving. "The essence of the custom is that I now have purchase for you a gift of commensurate value and representing the same level of perceived friendship as that represented by the gift you have given me."

So I am not sure what would be of commensurate value to baked goods. I would think that the thing I usually get her would work, if I had the money to go and buy it, which at this point I probably don't. Giving her baked goods in return doesn't seem like a good idea, as her house would already have plenty of baked goods (the broken cookies and other leftovers of stuff she makes for other people), and I'm not that good of a cook anyway. Anyway, I have been warned not to give her a scarf or anything that I might make for the others, as she likes to keep her house clutter free, which she does by throwing things out on a regular basis. Ideally she likes more practical stuff like soap, which she can use and enjoy and then it is gone. So I might make her some soap. Or, if they turn out good, I might make her some sweet potato chips. But then I would like to give her more than the one thing, just in case she really dislikes sweet potato chips.

At this point I don't think the sweet potato chips are going to work anyway. The regular potato chips were a disaster, and I have given up on them. Next I will try tortilla chips.

As for the rest of my Christmas gift list, I still have no clue about J. For R I was thinking about a scarf similar to the one I am making for Miss Allergies, except that it is taking too long, and R wants to limit the gift giving to about ten dollars. So the idea of giving her that particular scarf is out. I have something small for the last person in that group, and he will either be giving cards or "stocking stuffers", and while my gift for him won't fit in anyone's stocking, I did spend less than five dollars so I think it will work with the general idea.

And then there is my family, and I don't have a clue what to get for any of them, and we haven't yet discussed plans. I don't have the money for what I usually get my mom and my sister. I really don't have much money for anything. And I don't think any of them want a scarf. If they want scarves, I hope someone will tell me, but other than that I hope that they decide to go with something small, or maybe an exchange of baked goods.

Maybe I can get someone a fruit basket.

What else have I been doing?

Tuesday last week we heard that you could get a free Whataburger buy dressing from head to toe in orange. I wasn't sure about the head to toe part, but I have plenty of orange Halloween shirts. So I wore one with a mostly orange skirt and an orange headband. My husband wore one of the shirts and an orange hat. We hoped that would be enough. When we got there the place was crowded, as it turns out they were giving out the free burgers to almost anyone wearing any orange, and there were plenty of people with just orange shirts. We spent another five dollars on drinks and such with our free burgers, and it was a bit of fun.

Today or tomorrow I have to go to Irving, so we will probably see 9 at the dollar theater. Then I will be out of money again.

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.

In case you were wondering about Thanksgiving

Okay, today is Tuesday. I remembered enough about what is supposed to be going on to get out of bed and such because I know that I'm supposed to be going to school today. But then I remembered that today is Tuesday, and on Tuesday (Tuesdays for this semester anyway) I don't go to school until lunch time or just a bit after. So there's no hurry to get up and such, but since I'm wide awake now I might as well get up and such anyway.

I was remembering what day it is on Thursday, and I was remembering that some of my regular readers aren't from this country. I don't think that they have Thanksgiving. Or, at least, I don't hear about it being a big deal in England. And they have Thanksgiving as a big deal in Canada, only that in Canada they have it on a different day, and if fact they have it in a different month and celebrate it before Halloween. I guess that they didn't want to risk everyone getting snowed in if they waited until November.

Anyway, maybe I should explain the tradition to the foreigners.

While it is called Thanksgiving dinner, my family and everyone else that I can think of really has Thanksgiving lunch. And the morning before the Thanksgiving lunch, you watch parades on TV, and possibly you don't eat much breakfast. You don't eat much breakfast to leave lots of room for turkey and stuffing and pie and such that you'll be having for lunch, which you hope will be around eleven or twelve or so, cause that is when you normally like to have lunch, and on this day of all days you don't want late lunch. But then not everyone you are having lunch with likes lunch that early, so they were maybe thinking twelve or twelve-thirty, and then of course things don't quite go as they planned either, and lunch ends up being at one or even a bit later.

Since you maybe haven't eaten much breakfast, and maybe breakfast was a long time ago anyway, you start eating crackers and nuts to keep from getting sick and fainting. If no one in your family cooks, or if you decided to try something different, you might be spending an hour or so in line at Luby's. If that is the case, you really need to plan ahead to keep from fainting.

Sometimes, you are still having lunch til about three in the afternoon. This is a bit weird if you normally eat dinner at five or six. Are you still supposed to eat dinner at five or six if you're having dessert from lunch at three? Or should you just talk for a bit and have another dessert and skip dinner?

Between all of this eating, if you're a man, you watch football.

Anyway, at some point you have a bit of leftovers and call it dinner. And all this eating makes one sleepy, so you either have a nap or you go to bed early. And that is a good thing, because the real reason for all if this eating is to give you stamina for the next day's Christmas shopping. The stores open at five am this year.