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.

Update on the All-Con Situation

Okay, after months of asking about one-day tickets and being ignored, and then being told that there will be no one-day tickets, and then even some people were told that they were being a problem for only coming to All-Con on the one day and having the bizarre thought that they should only pay for the one day that they attend the convention, All-Con will now be selling Sunday only tickets for $15.

You still can't buy a one-day ticket for Friday or Saturday, when the stuff that most of us want to see is going on.

What the frak???

So I don't know if at the last minute they've figured out that they screwed up and just can't do anything about it because they didn't have any one-day tickets made up and so the only thing that they can do is sell left over badges on Sunday, or if they don't think that they screwed up but they might as well try to make a few extra bucks on Sunday.

The person who told me about the Sunday tickets is really, frakking mad.

Still not going. If somehow there had been a Saturday only ticket, I'd have gone. If somehow there had been a Friday only ticket, maybe. Okay, Friday is tomorrow, and I have stuff to do, and this is short notice, so probably not. But at least there's stuff that I want to do on Friday, so I would have had to seriously think about it, even if I ended up decided against it.

Anyway, if you're out there and you're not totally mad like my friend, and Sunday is the day that you really wanted to go anyway, now you can go for $15. Just thought I'd pass that on.

More bad weather

It had seemed to me that the conditions were slowly going to get better, or maybe I had just gotten used to how bad they were. But we have more snow now, and there is still the ice on the roads under the snow, so it is in fact a bit worse, because drivers cannot see now where the ice is, and while they drive over the snow that will sort of compact and make more ice.

My husband had heard that it might be safe to drive home today. I don't know what he was thinking. I know what the weather is here, and I've just looked at the forecast where he is now, and it won't get below freezing until 10 am tomorrow. So, if you happen to be reading this, don't check out until tomorrow morning, and don't actually start driving until sometime after 10 am, and if you are not home by 6 pm you had better see about getting another room and waiting til Sunday to make the rest of the drive, cause unless the roads are actually dry the melting snow will just start to freeze again.

We had heard that there was more snow coming, we just didn't expect this much. We have like 5 inches, and there might still be more coming.

Two days ago, someone in my family had ventured out, and had called to ask if I needed anything. I said no. I wish now I had asked for a pizza. I have food, and I'm supposed to be trying to lose weight, but I am so tired of it. And I haven't had caffeine for over a week now. No Cokes, not even diet ones. It's hard to sleep sometimes, so I figured that it was better off without caffeine if I could manage. But I really want a Coke, and a pizza, and chocolate, and maybe a hamburger. And some Chinese food. And some nachos. And some hot wings.

C's party has been rescheduled for next month. Now I'm a starting to worry about next week's party, as the weather is probably better next week, but it looks like it will snow again on Wednesday, and I don't know if it will all be cleared away by Saturday. I have already been told that there are absolutely no refunds for the room, so the party would either have to go on as scheduled, or they would have to somehow raise more money to rent the place a second time. The money lost on C's rescheduled party is just coming out of C's pocket. I'm wondering if we shouldn't pass the hat or something, but right now I don't even know how much money was lost.

I have spent most of my time in bed. The bedroom is not the warmest room in the house, but as I just recently decided to get on with taking up the carpet and such, the warmest room is unusable, and the rooms and hallway next to it are full of extra stuff. I got work done on Monday and Tuesday, as the house still seemed pretty warm for most of Tuesday, but not so much on Wednesday. So I just stayed in the bedroom under blankets. Yesterday seemed warmer, but I was in no hurry to get back to work, as I expected it was going to be even warmer today I thought today soon enough. But now I expect it to be cold until after lunch. Maybe then. Still no hurry I suppose. The trash will not be hauled away until Saturday, if then.

Okay, back to bed.

Yesterday's convention

I suppose everything went as well as could be expected. At least it was for me. I think other people might have had different feelings on the subject.

G picked me up at my place, on time, and drove me to a restaurant where he liked to have breakfast. I had never been there before. I liked the place, though what I ordered was not the best for a person trying to lose weight. Even after having breakfast, we were still a bit early, as I had been told that the general admission people would not be allowed in til 11:00, and they wouldn't even be sold tickets til 10:15. So we had time for G to run an errand, and we still arrived around 10:30. Not in any hurry, we spoke to a few people in the parking lot, and then a friend came to tell us that they were letting people in a bit early. So I told G that I would see him later, and I went off with my friend. By the time we found where to buy a ticket, there was no line at all.

At least, there was no line for buying a ticket. There was a long line for getting autographs. I wasn't sure that I wanted any because a.) getting an autograph costs a lot more than it used to, and b.) I wasn't sure if I wanted to stand in this line. So I went off in search of something else to do, thinking that the line would go down some and I might do it later.

My club had a table, somewhere. I looked around, but I didn't see it. I went in the dealer's room, not so much looking at the dealers, but looking around for my friends in case they had been moved to this room. I didn't see them. I ran into a few more friends and talked for a bit, then walked around looking again for the club table. I had walked back and forth the entire length of the place twice without seeing it. I found another friend, who pointed out the table for me. I hadn't seen it before because of all the people in the autograph line in front of it. Okay, mystery solved.

So after figuring out where most everything was, I went back to the dealer's room. I didn't see much that I wanted, which was good, cause I didn't want to spend much money. The main thing that I wanted was Nichelle Nichols' autograph. Getting Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) to autograph a picture would cost $30, and I wasn't even sure that included the picture.

There were other people there besides Nichelle Nichols. I had met Anne Lockhart (original Battlestar Galactica) before. Erin Gray from Buck Rogers was there. The girl who had played Batgirl in the 60s was there. The medtech from the now cancelled Stargate Universe was there. But I think most of us wanted to see Nichelle Nichols, Morena Baccarin (Firefly and the new V), and Trisha Helfer and Katee Sackhoff of the Battlestar Galactica remake.

Now, at about $30 each, getting all the autographs would have cost me over two hundred dollars. I already have autographed pictures of Anne and Erin, so that would bring it down to $180. Not much of a Batman fan, so I didn't really need that autograph either. And as much as everyone else loved the new Battlestar Galactica, by the end of it I was mainly still watching cause everyone else loved it so much I just wanted to keep up so I'd know what everyone else was talking about. So the remaining three autographs would have cost me $90. And even if I'd had $90, that's just too much. And really, while I'm still a fan of Stargate Universe, I don't really feel that I need that autograph either. If I spent all the money I had I could get two autographs, and it would have been really nice to have Morena Baccarin sign something, but no.

It did not used to be this way. When I first started going to conventions, the actors who did autographs did them for free (or at least, we did not pay them directly, it was included in the price of the ticket). So either the actors would autograph stuff for everybody, or they would autograph stuff for a limited amount of time they had been paid to do that, or they didn't autograph anything for anybody (I was shocked the first time I paid to see Leonard Nimoy and he didn't do autographs, and DeForest Kelley didn't do autographs at public appearances because he had arthritis), depending on how much the convention had paid them and how long they were scheduled, etc.... So if the actor was doing autographs, the only additional money you had to spend to get an autograph was maybe five dollars for a photo for them to sign, but if you didn't have that they might still sign your convention program.

Then came the VIP tickets and the Gold tickets and the preferred seating tickets, etc.... You had to pay to get autographs, and they probably weren't going to do autographs for everyone, so if you really wanted an autograph you should buy a special ticket that put you at the front of the line and such. I have never done that, but some of my friends always do that. The price of getting an autograph went from free to five dollars to ten dollars to twenty dollars.

I pretty much stopped getting autographs then, though I did still purchase a few, and I got five free for volunteering at a Stargate convention. But it's been about ten years since I've done much of this sort of thing. I miss it sometimes. (But I don't miss it enough to spend a lot of money and/or drive to the other side of Dallas.)

Someone from my club stood in that long line and spent $120 getting three autographs. He wanted two more autographs, but Trisha and Katee were late and he'd have to get them later. He ate lunch and then got back in line.

I talked to a few more people and then had another look at the autograph line. It was about half the size it had been, but it was still a line. And that was just the line to get into the room. You had to stand in line again for each autograph.

And the people with VIP tickets got to go to the front of the line, whenever they happened to arrive. So you could stand in line for a long time, nearly get to the front of the line, and then have dozens of people just walk in front of you. And the preferred seating group was also supposed to go before the general admission people, but there seemed to be some confusion about that. Anyway, I thought that maybe most of the VIP group had already gone through the line and there wouldn't be that many of them walking up to the front. But I still had to seriously think about standing in this line and spending $30.

While I was standing there thinking about it, one of the volunteers was trying to explain how the line was now being split into two separate lines, because Trisha and Katee still were not there. If you were waiting for either of them you stayed where you were, but if you just wanted one of the other autographs, you got to move forward quite a bit. You still had to stand in line again once you got into the autograph room, but still, if I got in line right then that cut the wait time by more than half. So I got in line.

Once I got inside the room and found out which line I was supposed to be in, it was okay. There were people waiting for Trisha and Katee. Nichelle and Morena both had long lines, but not near as long as the line outside. There was a very small line of people waiting to get Batgirl's autograph, and a few people talking to Anne and Erin. There was no one waiting for the Stargate Universe medtech. I felt sorry for her. If I wasn't so short on money I think I might have gotten out of line and gone to her table for a bit. It didn't stay that way forever, but she never quite had the line the the actors around her had.

When I was halfway through the line to get Nichelle's autograph, I saw Katee come in. Stuff happens. Planes are delayed, and there are accidents on the freeway, and people are late. It is annoying for them, and it is annoying for us.

I got Nichelle's autograph. I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. I had seen all of the other original cast members in person; she was the last.

Now that I had my signed photo, I went back to the dealer's room to buy a photo protector. I probably had several at home, but I forgot to bring any. It's been a long time since I've gone to a convention. I'm just not organized.

A bit later I see the guy from our group still in line in the hallway, waiting to get autographs from Trisha and Katee. That surprised me, as I had seen one of them come in and I thought the other one was just behind her. But just before he could get into the room, one of them was called away to do a photo op, and not only are photo ops scheduled for a very short time, they cost more than autographs, so the photo ops were not delayed anymore than necessary. He was still waiting in line when I went off to get a seat to hear Morena speak.

The schedule had been changed. There should have been someone else speaking in the main room when I arrived, but the room was nearly empty. There had been an announcement, but I had missed hearing it in the autograph room. But it was not important.

I went to look for G, and did not find him. This worried me a bit, that I would not find him before the other stuff started, and maybe he would want to leave as soon as Nichelle finished speaking but couldn't find me. I spent about twenty minutes looking for him, gave up, and went back to the main stage room. There were a few more people there now, so I did not have the perfect seat that I gave up, but I still had a good one. K came to join me, and I saved G a seat just in case.

Now there was confusion as to where the preferred seating people were supposed to sit. The VIP sections were clearly roped off, but I didn't see anything that said preferred seating. Someone sitting behind me had paid the extra ten dollars for the preferred seating, and she thought that she the general admission people would be asked to wait outside until all the VIP and preferred seating ticket holders were seated, and that this would be repeated again between speakers. I expected that since no one had asked me to wait that other than roped off areas it was first come first served, and I had a good seat and I would be there for the next three hours or so.

Morena spoke for almost an hour, and then Nichelle spoke. At that point I found G, who was not concerned one way or another when we left. We stayed to hear the last panel, which was Trisha and Katee. The other actresses did not speak that day, and most of them were not scheduled to speak on Sunday.

G and I left. I do not know when or if the other guy from our group (who paid a bit extra for the preferred seating ticket) got his autographs from Trisha and or Katee. Except for lunch the only time I saw the poor guy he was standing in line for something.

I was tired by then, and mostly glad that G was ready to leave. Others were going hang around for a bit and then head to a restaurant. It would have been nice, but I didn't need it, and I'm eating quite enough non-diet type food as it is.

I got home and thought how this wasn't my life anymore. I kind of miss it, but on the other hand I kind of don't. I wish I had something else entirely, but I haven't a clue what or how to get it.

But I am very glad that after all this time I have finally seen all of the original Star Trek actors.

Week three

Okay, so at the end of week one I was trying to keep myself from jumping up and down, that I'd had some weight-loss but probably not as much as it seemed. But that first week was pretty much perfect, with me eating only what I was supposed to eat and not drinking any regular sodas.

The next two weeks were not perfect. By the second week I should have been doing the whole eight glasses of water per day thing, and then on the third week I should have been paying more attention to the whole 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables thing. Well, I'm only just now getting around to the drinking enough water thing. I have lost some weight, but either it isn't much more than that of the first week, or else I just read the scale wrong the first week. I've stayed away from the regular sodas, but it has been a while since I've written down what I was eating. And in an attempt at keeping my husband from going totally nuts with the food, about half the time I eat what he is eating. And his diet isn't about losing weight, so sometimes this is bad.

Sometimes he eats something that is in the 200-300 calorie range, and that's fine and I eat that too. Other times he eats something that is more than 500 calories, plus it has side dishes that aren't very low-cal either. The first few times this happened I ate half a serving of his food, and that seemed to go okay. But the last few days have been bad. We had this little fish, which I thought would be good, but I guess there was something high calorie on the fish, and then the fish came with potatoes. It was small already, so eating half didn't work. And then after that there was this small Asian chicken salad, and it was just too small, but it still had about four hundred calories. So not only did I eat the tiny salad, but then I was still hungry and ate a cereal bar. So that probably didn't do the diet much good.

After getting upset and having this discussion about the expensive food that he would probably end up throwing away, we have gone shopping again, and I guess he just doesn't get it. Yesterday we threw out what looked like a pound of spinach. And the frig is full of food, and I doubt that he will cook most of it before he heads out of town again.

Also my mother took me to Burger King, cause we hadn't seen each other for a bit and she had this coupon. The coupon was buy one get one free stuffed Whooper. The stuffed Whooper is 600 calories. My mother wants to lose weight too, so she asked for the sauce on the side.

A stuffed Whooper with sauce on the side is still a stuffed Whooper.

Anyway, at the time I was still being very good with the diet, so I ate half of the Whooper and took the other half home for breakfast the next day.

I think that soon I will have to stop eating stuff from my husband's diet, but the social stuff is still going to be a problem. There is a lot of stuff coming up soon. Saturday, I might go to a convention, and I guess that I'll have to pack lunch, and then there might be a dinner after and I have no idea where so I can't prepare much for that. Sunday is the annual meeting. I'd totally forgotten about the annual meeting, and of course I will be going, and I'm pretty sure that I will be eating, and it will be pizza this year.

More about the annual meeting on a later post.

Then there is the usual monthly stuff next month, plus a party, plus another party. Two parties. Two parties where the main thing I do is eat.

Here is how we ended up with two parties, and I forgot that it was two parties.

Some friends had a party in February. I don't think it had a Valentine theme or anything, but it was in the middle of February and there's dancing and dressing up and such (though this is a group of Trekkies, and our idea of dressing up is a bit different). The second year they invited more people, and I went either the second year or maybe the third year. And then one year they had scheduling problems and the party ended up being in August. I thought August was better anyway. So they've had this party four or five times and I've been to two or three of them.

In this group of friends there is C. One year C had his fiftieth birthday party at the same place as the other party. I think that his actual birthday is in January, but they decided to have the party a bit later so that it was on the same day as his son's birthday party, and that way they could just rent the room for the whole day and the kids could have their party at noon and C's adult party would be in the evening. For C's party we were asked to wear black. C had such a good time that the next year he had the "Goth Ball" again.

So it was pretty much the same group of friends at the same place, but they are two different parties. But now the first party has moved from February to August and now back to February. So now C's party is the first weekend of February and the other party is the second weekend. Somehow in my mind I'd forgotten that they were two separate parties, and that C's party wouldn't necessarily be cancelled just because the other party was the same month. And the other party is partially a fund raiser for a local charity, and you have to buy tickets, and I've already bought one, not realizing that I'd be going to parties two weekends in a row.

And this is in addition the usual stuff the weekend after that.

Also, there is the crew dinner, which is the day after one of the parties. I don't always go to the crew dinner, but this one is in Irving, and it is at Souper Salads, and they are pretty much expecting those of us on diets will want to go.

Maybe not so much.

I am sure that you can go to Souper Salads and eat something very sensible, but I never do. I can eat something sensible that tastes better and cost less money at home. My husband wanted to go there last week, which we did, but I really didn't see the point. He mostly ate sensible stuff that we already had at home. I ate a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I ate much less that I normally do, but I still still think it was way too many calories. After we got home I looked up the nutritional information. Some of the prepared salads were like a hundred calories per serving, but sometimes the serving was listed as 1/3 cup. I'm pretty sure that I didn't eat anything that small, and I had at least four salads. And that was me trying to be good, instead of eating what I usually eat, which also involves bread and dessert and seconds of everything.

Anyway, for the next four weekends, I have something to do socially, sometimes more than one thing, and probably all of the things will involve me buying and eating food with too many calories.

After that will be the end of my husband's six week experiment, and if he quits he'll be back to suggesting we go out for ice cream and such.

I'm going to have to give this whole diet thing some thought.

They are right, but they're wrong too

So I was hanging out with my friends at the New Year's Eve party, and one of my friends is sort of asking advice about dating. This person doesn't date much. After having an account with eHarmony, she is switching to Match.com, because it is less money, and because in her opinion eHarmony takes too long.

Except for switching to a different dating website, it seems like this person had this same conversion last year and got mostly the same advice from mostly the same people.

This person doesn't date much, but I suppose that she's decided if she's ever going to have someone special in her life that it is time to do something about it. I'm guessing that she decided this a few years ago, but she still hasn't found anyone. And she hasn't dated much in the past, so she's a bit worried about dating now. She's also worried that if she does meet someone that she wants to be with that they will get married and she won't like being married after being single for so long. She has quite a list of things that she is either worried about or just flat out does not want.

I haven't seen her list. I haven't heard much about what is on the list. But I don't see that having a list is a bad thing. You probably go out on fewer dates if you have a list and stick to it. But I don't see that as a bad thing either. How can it be a bad thing if you don't date someone that you already know you wouldn't want to end up in a serious relationship with.

Everyone else seems to be telling her that she's doing this all wrong, and that she should just start dating and enjoy meeting different people, and that she shouldn't be so worried about what might happen. They tell her to stop worrying and just let it happen. She's not going to have a good time dating if she's always thinking about getting married.

I think that is the whole point of dating, so I think that they're wrong. Maybe it isn't as much fun, but if she's really looking for a husband, shouldn't she stop dating someone as soon as she's decided she wouldn't marry him? Wouldn't it be better to not date at all rather than waste time with people she doesn't want. And I'm guessing that dating isn't all that fun for her anyway, or she would have done more of it.

And I do think that she has valid concerns about finding someone nice, getting married, and then not being happy after finding out what actually living with this other person is like.

Maybe she has such a long list of things that she wants and does not want that she will never get a date, and maybe she should shorten the list, but I don't think that she should be talked out of having a list or even told what things she can have on that list. If she's that worried about ending up with someone who snores, why can't she be honest about it?

Christmas is nearly over

Okay, so in my immediate family, the past few years we've done our main Christmas stuff during Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day, for a couple of reasons, mainly that one of my siblings can spend Christmas with the in-laws. So today I don't know what I will be doing, if I will be doing anything at all. The guys are going to spend much of the day playing video games, and when they take a break to eat lunch I am invited over, and if they decide to watch one of the DVDs someone got for Christmas I'm invited over for that too. Other than that I will probably be here cleaning or maybe knitting. And I might go see Grandma, but one never knows if that will involve spending about five minutes actually talking to Grandma, or several hours spent with other relatives who came to talk to Grandma. Either way is okay with me, I just don't know which to plan for.

So, normally, this would be the end of it, except for the after Christmas clearance sales. Well, this year I will attempt to cut down on the clearance sale shopping, with a few exceptions, like if I see any solar powered lights I will get those. I'm thinking that I would like to have several of those, but I'm only planning to buy the one on Sunday, and there probably won't be much left after that. Solar lights would solve my problem of not having an outdoor electrical socket for Christmas decorating, and I also think that the white lights would look good somewhere year round. The office might not agree, so I'm not going to spend that much, and I'm not going to put up anything til sometime next year.

Solar lights are a bit expensive. New and in season cost $20 for a string of 50 lights, so they'll be $10 when I go and look for them Sunday morning, and I probably won't find any left when I go looking for them again at the 75% off sale later.

Ideally, you would have all different colors of solar lights up all year, maybe orange or purple for Halloween, red or green for Christmas, and white for all year long, and then you just cover up the solar panels for the lights you don't want after the holiday has past. But I don't doubt that the office would have a fit over that idea.

Well, a friend of mine got me a purple knitting loom for Christmas, and it is supposed to be the ideal size for knitting adult hats. And it just looked like they were the same as the old yellow looms, just a different color and in a new package for marketing purposes. And I didn't want to tell my friend that I already had two yellow looms somewhere, and that I didn't really think that they were the ideal size for making hats and that I rarely used them at all. But, it's always good to have spare looms, so I just said thank you and something about it being like the ones I made scarves with only bigger, and didn't mention that I already had two yellow looms. But as it turns out, after I got it home and compared it to the yellow loom it is just a bit smaller but has 48 pegs, which is several more than the yellow loom. So maybe it is the ideal size for making adult hats.

Which is not the same as saying the hats are very attractive. Making a baby hat with the red loom works fine, though I'm thinking that they quickly out-grow the hats. This year I also made a child's hat with the green loom, and that also turned out okay. But the loom hats are finished putting a strand of yarn through all the top loops, taking the yarn off of the pegs, and pulling the strand of yarn tight until all of the top loops come together. It doesn't look the least bit round, but on the smaller hats it doesn't look that bad. On an adult hat made with 48 pegs, this makes the top look a bit lumpy, and when it's on a person's head the head looks a bit odd, sort of square.

This is one of those times that I think it would be helpful to know how to crochet or hand knit with regular knitting needles (or maybe in this case circular knitting needles). Maybe someday I will learn how to do that and knit the hat part way on the loom and then finish it the top some other way. But for now the loom by itself will have to do, and I made hats for the baby and Buddy and Buddy's dad.

I didn't think that Buddy would like his hat, and that we would have a hard time getting him to put it on just so that I could see if it fit him. We put on the baby's hat first. Well, Buddy loves the baby, but he's supposed to be getting all the stuff and all the attention, so whenever something is going on with the baby, he tends to interrupt and say that he wants something. So, while mom is putting the hat on the baby, Buddy wants the hat. So when he finds out that he also has a hat, he puts it on. And he keeps it on most of the night. Buddy's dad wanted a picture taken with the three of them in their hats, and then the other two hats came off immediately after the picture. Buddy wore his nearly til bedtime.

I have a sock-loom. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but when I was out shopping Sunday I found a sock-loom I had seen online for $30, and it was $25 in the store. And I'm thinking that I'm going to come back some other day when I have a 40% off or even 50% off coupon and buy the thing. Except that they only had the one, and I'd never seen one in the store before, and they were having an additional 25% off sale, so I decided to go ahead and buy it. I haven't used it yet, and I doubt that I'll be making just tons of socks, but it is something that I have wanted for a while and now I have one.

Well, I still have a few people to exchange gifts with on New Years Eve. One gift is already done (and has been done since last year), I'll have to think of something for K, and I still might make that scarf for the pilot.

But other than that, Christmas is nearly over.

And I still didn'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.

Besides rearranging the boxes

The boxes are still there, but I haven't really looked at them since Friday. Saturday I went and hung out with my friends for a bit, and ended up staying out past one in the morning and not getting to bed until about two. In my usual routine I try to go to sleep at about ten and usually don't make and end up falling asleep watching TV around nine or even eight. So two in the morning is really late for me.

It was a very busy Saturday. First, there was the usual stuff. Then there was the first round of discussion about the Halloween Party. Then there were people showing off their steampunk stuff, and even a demonstration on how to make steampunk stuff.

I have no steampunk stuff. Everyone assures me that with my closet full of stuff I must have most of something steampunk already, and that I just need to add goggles or a hat or something. But I don't think so. Even if I go for an all black look and just have to get a hat (which I don't think is true) getting a hat is probably going to cost some money. Hats are not something I tend to find at Goodwill. And I'm trying to cut down on the Goodwill stuff anyway.

So I'm debating on whether or not I should try to make anything steampunk, just cause that is what everyone is doing at the moment.

Anyway, after the steampunk stuff there was a bit of just hanging out and wondering what to do til seven, when we were heading out to swim and have hamburgers and someone's house. Miss Allergies wanted to go shopping a bit and then go to a restaurant, cause she didn't want a hamburger. There was so much time spent discussing this, and there wasn't much time to kill to do one of those things, much less both. And I'm thinking that going to a restaurant on the way to dinner sounds a bit dumb. It's a waste of time, and it's a waste of money, even if I only buy and overpriced soda and tip the waitress. I don't want to do that.

And why can't Miss Allergies eat a hamburger. I know that she eats steak, so what is the big deal about eating a hamburger. I know that she isn't allergic to beef.

And even though I meant not to go home, I realize that I've forgotten my phone, and I want to go back for it. And I do have an errand to run, so I tell them I'll see them later, maybe at this restaurant, and maybe not.

So after going home and running an errand and doing one more little thing, I only have about twenty minutes to kill anyway. Going to the restaurant seemed silly to begin with, and going to a restaurant for twenty minutes sounds outright stupid. So I find something else to do and skip the restaurant.

I head out and miss the place that I'm supposed to turn. I aways seem to miss the place that I'm supposed to turn, even in the daylight, and end up having to make a u-turn and drive in a big circle to get back where I was. So I end up being a tiny bit later than I meant to be, even without going to a restaurant or going shopping or any of that other stuff.

Well, I meant to eat first and then rest a bit before jumping in the pool, but nobody else seemed ready to eat, so I was soon in the pool in my somewhat tight figure-correcting swimsuit. I don't look too bad in it, and I got compliments and such. And then somehow the discussion of modest swimwear came up, and I said that I would wear one if I knew where to buy one at a good price. And I don't want to go to an athletic store and buy one there, cause while those are more modest they are for serious swimmers and they cost a serious amount of money. Then someone is saying how swimsuits cost that much money anyway, unless you go to Walmart or something.

Now, I think that what the price is at Walmart is what the item actual costs (and I often pay even less getting things on clearance or on sale), and the price paid at other places is not for the thing itself but for the label or the fancy store, not for the thing itself. So I don't know what this person has against Walmart or Target, but I would certainly buy the thing there if they had it, I'm just pretty sure that they don't.

Anyway, after looking online I think that something close to what I want is on sale for fifty dollars, and that is still too much, especially since it doesn't cover the knees, and I hate my knees. So I'm probably not going to get one, since I don't look too bad in the one I got on sale last year for eight dollars.

After that, the atheist who went on a rant New Year's Eve went on another rant. And it wasn't like a back and forth discussion or anything, it was just her going on about it, and people mostly agreeing with her except for minor points, and I can't get a word in anyway, and even when I do she just keeps going. I'm getting tired of it. I realize that most people do not hold up to my moral standards, but I look the other way if people don't rub it in my face.

Except for that, I really had a good time, but stuff like that reminds me that I should get some new friends.

Swim, eat, and then swim again. Okay, not really swimming, just being in the pool. Then I went home and tried to get out of the swimsuit. Well, it was tight enough to start with. After it gets wet it is outright difficult to get in and out of. Then I went to bed about two.

Unfortunately, I still wake up at the usual time. So I don't feel well until a couple of hours after lunch. For lunch we went to a nice place, even though it was Father's Day and both our fathers are dead. But we had this gift card from Christmas that we still hadn't spent, and the buffet that we used to like so much is only served now on holidays, so if we really wanted it that was the day it had to be. So we went. It wasn't quite as great as I remembered, but it was nice. We ran a few errands, and then I spent most of the rest of the day in bed watching DVDs.

Monday I tried to do something in the garden involving cinder blocks. Okay, it isn't the garden itself, it is the damned "please don't flood my house" pump, which usually works now, but on rare occasions it gets tangled up and you have to go and deal with it during the actual flood. And since the pump in the area that is low anyway, if you walk to it during the rain you have to wade through a puddle. So I am clearing away the area right up against the wall and trying to make a pathway of these cinder blocks. It is more work than I had in my head. In fact, just getting the things home from the store is harder than I pictured, so that is getting done four at a time, not all at once, and not even six at a time like a planned.

So I did about a third of the first part of the work Monday, followed again by several hours of being in bed watching DVDs. And then something had to be dropped off in Arlington, and what was supposed to be just that and a trip to Home Depot turned into a whole afternoon thing ending in the all you can eat buffet at Pancho's, which isn't even my favorite thing anymore. And I really must stop going to buffets, cause I feel bad about it later.

I'm about to go and add three more blocks to the path.

Until ten this morning, there's free breakfast sandwiches at Whataburger, so we'll be doing that soon. And then either today or tomorrow we will probably be going to a garden in Dallas, cause we bought a season pass or a membership or whatever. This should encourage us to go for long walks. Walking is pretty much my only exercise, as I really hate participating in any sports, and I don't really swim, even when there is a pool, which usually there is not.

And the boxes still need to be rearranged again.

What smells like beer?

Before I get too much into the boring details, let me say that I mostly had a good weekend.

And if you were planning to eat your spaghetti dinner while watching the latest episode of Being Human, alter your plans a little bit.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to make some cookies. I don't think that I have made any cookies from scratch since I have lived here, but I thought that it might be a good idea after I found this recipe online, and I remembered that I would have three things coming up that would require me to bring food.

So I took the new mixer out of the box and I went and spent five bucks on a new cookie sheet (cause it had been so long since I made any cookies I couldn't find the old ones) and I got together the ingredients that I already had and went out and bought what was missing. The new cookie recipe was not that great, but now that I had this new cookie sheet and all the ingredients for making cookies, I decided to try making an old recipe except to substitute whole wheat flour. That wasn't great either, so I went and bought some regular flour and tried again.

The cookies weren't bad, just not like I remembered. They are sort of tall and fluffy. I don't know what I did wrong. Also, I don't taste the baking soda. Chocolate chip cookies have baking soda, and I am quite sure that I put in the baking soda, but I can't taste it. Does baking soda get old or go flat or something?

Again, the cookies aren't bad, and in fact I am starting to like them, though I sort of doubt that anyone else will. I just can't figure out why they are different. Anyway, I took some of the whole wheat ones to the annual meeting, cause I had to take something, and most of them did not get eaten, which is okay cause that left more for me. I took the regular flour ones to the party, and again not many were eaten, so again I have leftover cookies for me, which I am not complaining about. But I think that I will give up on making the cookies for anyone other than me, and I will figure out something else to take to the last thing, and in fact there is no reason that I have to take anything to that at all if I don't want to. But I'm thinking that I will just purchase some candy instead.

All day Friday and Saturday, I had been very careful to read any emails from the group, in case it had something to do with the party that I would need to know about. Not that there was much, just people asking other people if they were going, and what are you bringing, and once in a while what are you wearing, etc.... And there was this new guy that hasn't been to a regular meeting yet, though he's already officially a member of a club, just that most of us hadn't met him yet and didn't know who he was. And he was asking about the party, and no one else answered him, and I didn't quite know what to tell him. But I thought that somebody had to say something. It wasn't an official club function, just that someone had invited pretty much everyone in the club. If he had joined a few weeks earlier, he would have officially been invited already. I didn't think that it would be a problem if he came, but I really couldn't invite someone I didn't know, and I thought that he should talk to the couple giving the party, though by that time it was too late. He already knew where the party was, so I told him the time and a little more info, hoping that someone else would chime in and say whether he was or was not officially invited, but again no one else said anything.

So after all this wondering what I should take to the party and what I should wear to the party, I have bought a black blouse and this sort of black thing that is not really a shawl and yet another black dress, and then I decided that it was too cold to wear any of that and just gave up and decided to wear what I wore last year. Except that I couldn't find what I wore last year. So I ended up wearing some really dark blue stuff and black boots and this black thing that used to be part of a Masonic costume.

I was getting ready to leave early, cause I hate driving in the dark, when I realized that I forgot to charge my phone. So I wait a little while to put some life into the phone, and then I head out, and as I am just nearly there I realize that with moving things from one bag to another and getting my keys sorted out and everything that I have somehow not transferred my wallet and do not have my driver's license or any money or a debit card or anything. Not that I expect to need any money or anything, but it would be very upsetting if something happened and I needed to show my driver's license. I didn't expect that would happen, and I was nearly there anyway, so I kept going, and nothing bad happened. But it was still very annoying.

So I got there at about the same time as a couple of friends, and we were all about twenty minutes later than we had intended, but we were still the first there from our group, and the parking lot was mostly empty. And I have been to this place several times before, but I am always surprised by the layout when I get there. There is this sign that says something like "Lake Ahead", and literally, the lake is right there after the sign. Not that the parking lot I'm looking for is ahead, but the lake is ahead. By the time I read this sign I have already missed where I meant to go, and I have to turn around and go back a little bit.

So we go in and see all empty tables, as everyone who is already there is in the back helping our hostess. So we are relieved that we are not late.

More people come in and bring food, and I am surprised how many of them are not wearing black. A few more of my friends show up, and some of us sit down and eat. And then this guy comes in by himself, and I think that's probably our new guy, and then I restrain myself from blurting out something like "Are you the new guy?" and he looks around a bit and goes to the back of the room. So maybe he isn't our new guy. But a bit after that someone brings him over and says something like these are some of the people in your group. And then there is a discussion between the four guys about steampunk stuff, and then the new guy and the other guy wander off to meet other people.

I get up to get some more food, and I'm wondering what smells like beer?

Probably beer.

I don't drink alcohol, but I do like several things that are made with alcohol, mainly beer bread and beer chili and beer cheese soup. But there was none of that, just beer.

So there was a lot of talking to people I don't really know and whose names I can't even remember. And I talked to the new guy some more. And I talked to M.

This is not M my friend the Klingon, this is the other one, and I see him once in a while, and I have finally decided that it isn't weird and running into him a couple times a year is not a problem. So that's what I thought, so I kept talking to him. I was wrong.

I had a few items of clothing that I decided I needed to part with, though I would rather give them to someone I knew would appreciate them and make costumes from them, so I brought them to the party. I gave a t-shirt to my host, who thought it was such a cool picture that it didn't bother him that it was started to tear. And I looked around the room for women who might fit into the dresses, and I asked a few if they were interested, and they said no. And then I noticed a certain person I did not want to have any of my things, so I did not make an announcement like I had planned. But then another friend arrived, and she said that she wanted the whole bag, so that worked out. I'm glad I thought of it instead of just dumping the stuff at Goodwill with the rest of the clothes I got rid of.

I talked to the new guy some more, and it is always nice when someone attractive is paying attention to you. He made suggestions, and though he said upfront that it would not be a date, I'm afraid that he didn't really mean that so I declined. It seems like the guys that I have known for a while who suggest something that is "not a date" really mean that and totally get that it is not a date and is not going to lead to anything resembling a date, but guys that I have just met are thinking that the "not a date" will either somehow become a date or at least end with me agreeing to a date later. So no more "not a date" type things with anybody I don't already know. I will be happy enough to talk to you when we just happen to be at the same place at the same time, which is probably going to happen a couple of times later in the month anyway.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, M has reached a whole other level of stupid. And it is hard to believe that anyone is really that stupid, so he must just enjoy making other people uncomfortable. I am thinking that if I have anymore trouble from him, I will start a new blog totally devoted to answering the question, is M really that stupid?

The party ended a bit after that, and I waited for certain people to get their things together so that I could walk out with them and not be around either M or the new guy, even though the new guy was being totally nice.

I managed to drive home without anybody finding out that I didn't have my license in my purse.

Sunday we ate at Taco Bell, after my husband saw a commercial for something he wanted but they hadn't had for a while. And then there was the Superbowl, which he watched, and I watched commercials in between Googling stuff.

Yesterday we went to various thrift stores, but I didn't buy much, and it got cold and rained and we came home earlier than we might have and watched Caprica and Being Human.

And then we got some bad news about this job he was applying for. He had read somewhere what the pay was, but then he couldn't find where he had read that, so he sent another email. And we can only hope that they misunderstood the question. Surely no one gets paid that little. We were only thinking about the job because he read that it was a lot of money, and we wanted some clarification on if that was the most you could make or if that was an average or what. And on top of that you had to provide your own transportation to the interview, which was out of the state and would require either plane tickets and cab fare, or would require driving a lot and get a couple of motel rooms. And then you had to provide some of your equipment and buy somewhat of a uniform, plus nicer clothing was sometimes required.

Anyway, that is the end of that. We would have serious problems with paying to get to the interview even if we thought it would mean a good paying job. There is no reason to even waste the time if it is really such a low paying job. It was about half or less of what we have read about similar jobs, and even those do not seem to pay enough. So that was disappointing, but at least that particular discussion is over.

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.

Plans for the weekend

I should finish the scarf today. Well, that isn't exactly true. I should finish with the scarf being on the machine today, and then there is still a bit of work to be done (and I'm not sure how long that will take as I have never tried some of it before), and then there will be the usual bit of joining the edges and adding fringe and such which will take four or five hours.

Anyway, I am hoping that if I really work on it I should be able to finish it by Saturday and give it to my friend.

Even if I don't get it done by Saturday, it still feels good that the end is in sight, for something. And Saturday should be fun anyway. A day out with my friends is usually good. We have games and trivia scheduled. This year they expect so many people will want to play that it is planned that we should play on five-person teams. Last year it was an individual event, and I won, which means that plenty of people should want to be on my team.

I would rather have it all decided before Saturday, but so far I've only asked three people to join me (I can't decide who should be our fifth), and only one of them has emailed me back. He wants to be on my team, and he just thinks that the rest of it will sort itself out on Saturday without any problems.

Also on Saturday, we are supposed to dig up a time capsule. Or, at least, someone else is supposed to dig it up earlier so that we can have it opened on Saturday. There are plans concerning this that might get us thrown out of the restaurant, but we will see what happens.

I'm not crazy about that restaurant anyway, I just never know where else we should go.

I can't remember if we had originally planned to dig up the time capsule at the ten year point, or if they just thought it was a good idea to do it now. We had buried the thing at the home of a couple who got divorced a couple of years ago, and she's having trouble paying the bills by herself. Maybe it is just a good idea to dig up the thing while it is still her house.

Anyway, there is talk of putting new stuff in it and burying it again. I have given no thought as to what I would add. Nothing comes to mind, except maybe a scarf, and I'm not going to waste making a scarf to put into a time capsule.

It is one thing to make a scarf that no one will ever buy, and quite a different thing entirely to make a scarf that no one will ever see.

As for the rest of what is going on here, it is about the usual. We have been told that we have twenty-five weeks left of unemployment, my husband has no schedule for the next two or three weeks after Saturday, I am now told that while I thought at least everything was okay with the car we are a month behind on the payments, etc.... And I get nothing useful done with my time while my husband is home, and so now of course he is home all of the time.

But at least I'm going to go do something fun on Saturday.

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.

On the fourth day of Christmas

Okay, I skipped the first thing this year, the charity thing with the club. They said that it was the best ever, and I missed it. Whatever.

The thing with my Uncle G was nice. So I don't regret skipping the charity thing, cause I was knitting and doing other stuff to get ready for that. Though I do regret that I didn't get the knitting done while I was out of town, and then I might have had time for both things.

The third day of Christmas was Saturday, and that involved being at three different places to exchange gifts with different groups of people from the club. So there was the official gift exchange at one restaurant after lunch, and then there were more gifts exchanged among five of us at a different restaurant during dinner, and then there was a get together after dinner at someone's house, where I exchanged gifts with two more people.

I got home after three thirty Sunday morning.

Okay, I have now mostly recovered from Saturday.

Today is the fourth day of Christmas, which is no big deal, and we are going to visit my husband's brother. My husband has four brothers, two sisters, and some nephews, but he only cares about the one sister who lives out of state (and therefore we rarely see her and never have any holiday plans with her), and the one brother. We saw less and less of the others over the years, and after his mother died he decided he did not want to see the others at all.

We usually go to see this brother on the 23rd, but we are going on the 22nd this year to avoid seeing one of the sisters and a nephew and possibly one of the other brothers. Which is fine by me, as I have no interest in seeing them either, and now I have a day of rest between the fourth day of Christmas and the fifth day of Christmas.

The 23rd used to be a big deal, and a stressful day for me, but now it is just the one brother. And we usually don't even do anything for the one brother, we just go see him. We usually don't exchange presents with him. This makes me feel bad, a bit, but it is his brother, and he should work out those details, not me. So I don't bother with it anymore. If we are supposed to exchange gifts, someone needs to tell me. Or my husband needs to do the shopping for that, not me. So last year we were given some small token gifts, and we didn't give anything in return. We don't have anything for him this year either, or at least, not that I know about, so I don't expect he will get us anything, but he might again get us something small, or he might bake something for us.

Years ago they used to have the big family gathering on the 23rd, and I wouldn't be told that we were going until a few days before, and I couldn't get ready in time, much less be expected to get gifts for everyone, even if I had the money, which usually I did not. Not counting the sister that was out of state, and a brother and his wife who was out of state at the time, there were three brothers, a sister, their mother, a sister-in-law, a nephew, and two more nephews that might be there or might not, and the wives of the nephews that might be there or might not, and a son of one of the nephews that might be there or might not. And they exchanged gifts, but it wasn't one of those things where you draw names or anything like that, there were gifts for everyone. So that was seven gifts for the people we knew would be there, and then maybe five more if the others showed up. One year I was told that three of the others would be there, so I got them something, but then it turned out that the other nephew and his wife also showed up, and I didn't have anything for them.

The first year we did this I was given about a week's notice, but then I wasn't told there would be gifts exchanged until about the 20th or the 21st.

I think the family had stopped having this gathering a few years before we got married, but my husband forgot and sort of invited himself over, and then they had to do it cause he was expecting it. And then they did this for several more years, and then one year the brother who hosted the gathering announced that he and his family were going on a cruise or something that year, so no gathering on the 23rd. And then there was some other excuse the year after that, and then there were no more of the big family gatherings on the 23rd.

Without the big family gathering at the one brother's house, we still tried to do something with his mom and the one sister and the one nephew and two of the brothers. And then we saw less and less of them, though he did try to see his mother once in a while and he does still like to see the one brother. Then after his mom died he just didn't want to see anyone but the one brother. He avoids the rest of them, unless maybe he hears that the out-of-state sister might be in town, but we haven't seen her either since the death of his mother.

So now it is just the one brother, and people we are trying to avoid.

Anyway, most of my day will be spent either with this brother, or in the car driving to and from the brother's house.

So that leaves Christmas Eve with my family, Christmas with whoever happens to want to get together and maybe see grandma, and then New Year's Eve with my friends. All I have to do is wrap four gifts by the 24th and hopefully finish two scarves by the 31st.