I stole pizza

Okay, so I watched Friday's BSG episode and found it interesting enough. I got all the laundry done. Now I'm a bit behind on the dishes, but that's okay.

So Saturday morning I changed the sheets and all of that. I found that I could live without some of my DVDs, so I planned to leave early so I could see about selling three of them to Half Price Books.

Now, I have been trying to watch what I eat and not eat junk and not waste money, etc.... One of the things I did for about a week was eat yogurt. I would eat the yogurt sometime in the afternoon, after lunch. And since I was going to be gone after lunch, I didn't want to forget to eat the yogurt, so I figured that I should eat that first.

And then after I ate the yogurt, I forgot to eat lunch.

I had to go through construction in a couple of places. The first wasn't too bad, but the second was this whole detour, which is bad enough, but then we were all down to one lane each direction for most of the detour. And then someone hit me. Just a bump, but it felt like a real hard bump.

Okay, so I'm not really paying attention to who hit me, just trying to figure out what we should do. Cause we have to get out of our cars and exchange names and I need his insurance info and all of that. But since I don't think that there is serious damage to the car (if there is any damage to the car) I don't want to get out of the car right then and block everyone else. Unless maybe we can be really fast about it and do it in between lights. And I start to think that we could do that, but once I get unbuckled the light changes. So then I just think that I was about to make a left turn anyway, and right after I make a left turn there is an empty parking lot where we can get out of our cars and look at the damage and all of that.

So I turn left, and I think that he's going to follow me, but instead he burns rubber and turns right.

Okay, so I was in an accident, and whoever hit me fled the scene.

I couldn't tell you who hit me or even if it was a man or a woman or anything. The vehicle was black or dark blue. I just couldn't focus on that stuff, cause I was trying to focus on getting out of everyone's way and getting to that parking lot.

So I get to the parking lot, and I get out of the car and there doesn't seem to be any damage. And I'm not hurt, just really rattled. So I rest for a minute and then get back in the car and go on with my plans.

I get three bucks for the three DVDs. Not that great, but that's okay. Now I know.

And then I go on to the pizza place for the club meeting. And I don't buy any pizza, just a soda. I almost never buy anything from them anymore, except for the sodas. Their prices go up, and the pizza isn't as good as it used to be. The supposed improvements to the building are not anything that helps me. So I don't buy their overpriced food anymore.

So I go in to see my friends, and I buy a soda. And this man that I don't know walks into the room, looks around, and walks out. And then he comes back in again. So I ask if he's one of us, or if he's just lost.

So he says he is one of us, and he sits down next to me. And he's talking to me and someone at another table, and after a while he gets tired of turning his head back and forth, so the other person comes to sit with us. And then two more people sit down, which pretty much fills up the table.

Now, I usually save seats at the table for other people, but there was another empty table, and I figured that they could just sit there. The new guy is funny.

So then two of the people I usually wait for show up and squeeze into the table. And of the others one wasn't coming bacause she was straightening the house so that we could come over later, one was stuck in traffic, one was running late and finally decided not to bother with it, and my friend with the allergies had to cancel because of a serious family illness.

New guy is headed back to the buffet for more pizza and asks if he can get anything for anyone else. We say no thank you. One guy has just gone through the line, and the rest of us didn't buy any food.

New guy comes back with a lot of extra pizza anyway, and he's not going to eat it and neither is anyone else. And I never steal stuff from a buffet. And I know that someone else "shared" a buffet last year and was warned not to try that again.

So again I say that I don't want anything, and I'm a good honest person anyway. And the new guy is saying how much he paid for the buffet and he should get that much from it, which he isn't going to get eating by himself.

And then I remember that I forgot to eat lunch. And the pizza is just sitting there, literally getting cold now. No one is going to eat it. I might as well eat a little of it since it is just going to go in the trash anyway.

After eating two pieces of stolen pizza, we have a trivia contest, which I won.

Next I drive a couple of cities over, on part of the freeway I never drive on, but I do want to hang out at my friend's house, and that's where she lives now. I almost went home first and took the long way around, but I figure that we'll be making a lot of trips between the pizza place and my friend's house, so I might as well get used to the drive. I missed an exit and had to turn around, but the drive wasn't near as bad as I thought.

We stopped to have dinner, only three of the normal six or seven. And after that we went to my friend's house, and I didn't leave til almost two in the morning.

So that's just the best fun I've had since the last time I won a trivia contest and stayed at a friend's house until almost two in the morning.

Alone for the week: Day Four

Today is the last full day of my having the place to myself for almost a week. Tomorrow I have someplace to be right after lunch, and my husband will be home tomorrow evening.

And while the most of the mess still hasn't be dealt with, I have made progress in one room. And the mound of dirty laundry is now smaller than the stack that has been washed and folded. So it was good that I stayed here. I can pat myself on the back for getting a bit of work done.

I can also pat myself on the back for not sitting around eating junk food. I've hardly had any sugar this week. I have had only one coke per day (and a really small one at that), and once I had a snack size candy bar, and the only other processed sugar that I have eaten was the vanilla pudding that I used to flavor some of the yogurt.

So while I didn't start either the dollar a day thing or a diet this week, I don't think that I've been that bad either.

Tomorrow will be a different story, as I am going out with my friends to possibly three different places, and there will be stuff to eat and drink at all of them. And I suspect that my husband will want to go someplace on Sunday or Monday to reward himself for not spending too much money the rest of the week, if he actually has any money left, which he probably does not.

Since I have actually stayed in the house since Monday morning, there isn't much else to say. I was watching a tape of LOST yesterday, and I stopped the tape, and there was a plane crash on the news. Weird.

Tonight Battlestar Galactica is back on. Ten episodes left. I think that I am glad it is almost over. Still, I have to keep watching so that I can participate in the discussions, so I'll try to invite myself over to my brother's place tonight.

Time to go back to work.

Alone for the week: Day Two

Okay, so I've had the place to myself for two days now, and as usual I didn't get much done on the first day, and the sleeping by myself takes some getting used to. This disrupts my normal routine somewhat, as I now have no one to yell at to get off of the computer and come to bed. I suppose I could yell at myself, but somehow I don't see that as being an effective way of preparing to sleep.

So not much done the first day, and I got most of what I wanted to do done the second day. So I'm about a third or fourth of the way done with what I hoped to get done this week. I forgot that I have plans Saturday, so if I want to get done I have only today and tomorrow and a few hours on Saturday to do it.

Better get busy then.

Hopefully, my mom will not call and invite me to go shopping or anything. She called yesterday, but did not talk long and did not get around to asking me to go anywhere. She did ask what my husband's schedule would be on the first week of next month.

No matter how often you explain something to her, she never seems to get that the rest of us don't work Monday through Friday from nine to five, and we don't always know when we're going out of town, etc.... We know that someone will be working in Shreveport that week, but we don't know who. We only know about two weeks ahead of time, and even then the schedule might change, even after that they might change their minds and send him somewhere else.

And I explained that we didn't know, but that he was in Shreveport this week, probably next week, and possibly two weeks after that.

From that she concluded that my husband would be out of town for four weeks, not even two minutes after I explained that we didn't know.

I wasn't pleasant to talk to after that. Probably just as well. Lengthy phone calls with my mother are rarely a good thing anymore.

So, got my mom off of the phone, and I went back to work on the mess.

Well, now that I've made a clean spot, I'll have to try to make the rest match.

Day Thirteen

Okay, so I'm still not doing anything.

I had thought that it would be good to start the new year off with a diet.

And then I saw this blog, One Dollar Diet Project, and I thought that instead of the diet I might try something like what they did and see if I could eat on just one dollar a day for a certain length of time. Only I thought two weeks was a better goal for me, where they decided to try it for a whole month.

Some other people thought they would also start off the year doing the dollar thing, like the people at 1-dollar-a-day. Only they have already put their plan into action and are currently on the thirteenth day of their 31 day plan.

If I had started on the first, I would now be on the thirteenth day of my fourteen day plan. But that isn't what happened.

So I thought that a better idea would be to start on a day that I had the house to myself. And today I have the house to myself, and will probably have the house to myself for five days, and possibly a couple of days after that I will have the place to myself again.

But again, I am not really ready to do such a thing. Last week's aliments made me decide to start eating yogurt again. When I am really trying to eat right and lose weight and all of that, I spend more than a dollar a day on just the yogurt. So eating yogurt and doing the dollar a day thing probably won't work out at the same time, even if I only had one serving of yogurt per day instead of two or three like I would want if I were on a diet.

The other thing that I was thinking about the yogurt is that I used to make yogurt, but I haven't tried that in a long time. It didn't seem worth the effort for the little bit of money I saved.

But since I wasn't feeling well, and I hadn't tried it in a while, I made yogurt last week. And I was telling a friend about the cost, but I was kind of vague. I wasn't trying to be vague, just that I wasn't sure about some measurements and I don't do math off the top of my head anymore. So I got some stuff wrong. Let me try again here.

I bought some milk that was on sale for two dollars a gallon. Now, for however much yogurt you want, you have to buy that much milk. Half a gallon of milk will make half a gallon of yogurt. Sort of. I actually end up with just a little bit less yogurt, because a little bit gets wasted when you move the milk and yogurt to different containers, and then the yogurt sort of shrinks a little bit and separates into whey, and if you drain off that liquid you end up with a little bit less. But it is a very little bit, and I really can't measure it very well. So half a gallon of milk makes half a gallon yogurt, or a quart of milk makes a quart of yogurt, or five gallons of milk makes five gallons of yogurt, or whatever.

Then you have to buy starter culture, or just go to the store and buy some yogurt. I splurged on Stonyfield, and they didn't have any plain so I bought vanilla and crossed my fingers. That cost a dollar.

Okay, making yogurt isn't rocket science, but it does take time and is somewhat annoying.

I left about four cups of milk in the container, just in case one of us needed milk for cereal or mac and cheese or something. I poured the milk into a couple of crockpots. I figured this would take longer than the stove top, but I would also be less likely to burn the milk and ruin the whole thing. You have to heat the milk to about 180 or 190 degrees, without really making it boil a lot or get burned at the bottom of the pot. Then you have to cool the milk down to about 110, and then you add the yogurt or starter culture. After you've really mixed in the starter, you either put the milk/yogurt into the little containers of the yogurt machine or in the crockpot set on warm or some other method of keeping the mixture at this warm temperature for a long time. I like twelve hours.

After the twelve hours of being warm, you should have plain yogurt. Then you decide what you want to do with it and put it into containers and into the refrigerator. I spent about about a dollar and thirty cents on stuff to flavor the yogurt, but that was stuff that I bought a while back when it was on sale, so sometimes that part would cost more.

Okay, so here's where I got vague with my friend, but I didn't mean to be vague. A serving is about a cup, and I was trying to figure out how much it costs per cup. So I left about four cups of milk in the frig, and the rest I made into yogurt. I have a couple of containers that hold about four or five cups each, so let us say nine cups for the two, and I have four other cups, but I have to keep one plain and save as the starter for the next batch. And then I had some leftover yogurt that I put into a strainer for a couple of days to make yogurt "cheese", and I got about half a cup of that.

So for spending about four dollars and thirty cents I have about four cups of milk, twelve cups of flavored yogurt, half a cup of "cheese", and a cup of starter for the next batch. Not sure how to divide that up. If I just count the 12 cups of flavored yogurt, that's like paying 36 cents a cup and then having the "cheese" and the leftover milk and the starter for free. If I do the same with the next batch and get the same results, that would end up being 12 cups of flavored yogurt at 28 cents a cup with leftover milk and "cheese" and starter for free.

But that's assuming that I can find more milk and similar flavoring stuff on sale at the same price. The flavoring stuff I can stock up on when there is a sale, but for the milk you just have to pay whatever it happens to be at the time.

Homemade yogurt never seems to be as thick as store bought yogurt, unless you do something to it. It will firm up during the 12 hour warming process, and it might firm up a little more in the frig. But then when you flavor the yogurt, maybe by putting it in a blender with chocolate syrup, it all turns liquid again. For it to really firm up you have to strain out some of the liquid or add gelatin or something.

Okay, so that's it for the explanation of the yogurt.

Anyway, if I was doing the dollar a day thing, and even one cup of yogurt would cost 28 cents or 36 cents or whatever it would cost when milk is more than two dollars a gallon, then that's already a big chunk out of the dollar. Eating two of three cups a day would take up the whole dollar and leave nothing for actual meals.

I suppose that it still isn't impossible. I make this black bean soup for about 25 cents a cup. I've been told that the soup by itself isn't a complete protein or some such thing, and that I at least need to add some rice, and I don't know off the top of my head what that costs. Plain hot dogs also cost about 25 cents. Frozen burritos are often on sale for 39 cents. Eggs are frequently on sale for about 10 cents each, and ramen noodles are 6 for a dollar.

At least, ramen noodles used to be 6 for a dollar. I saw them at 3 for a dollar yesterday. I'll have to check the other stores later to see if it is just that one store or if the cost has gone up at all of them.

Okay, so 36 cents for yogurt, 25 cents for soup, 10 cents for an egg, and 16 cents for ramen noodles adds up to 87 cents, which leaves 13 cents for stuff like drinks and rice and peanut butter and bread and vegetables and maybe another egg.

I'm not sure how much of that other stuff I could get with 13 cents. Probably not enough that I would want to try it right now.

A 2-litter bottle of Coke costs a dollar on sale, which adds up to about 13 cents for an eight ounce glass. An eight ounce glass is very small. Even a kiddie cup is usually twelve or sixteen ounces. But I really like Coke or Pepsi or something with my black bean soup, and going without any cola causes headaches. The store brand soda is usually 80 cents or less, or 10 cents for that eight ounce glass. Store brand sugar-free lemonade mix is 30 cents for the 2 litter bottle, and diet Tang is sometimes on sale for 55 cents. So that's 4 cents a glass for lemonade or 7 cents a glass for the Tang. When milk is on sale for two dollars a gallon, that's about 13 cents per cup.

Rice is about 75 cent a pound, which is about 35 cents a cup dry, which makes about three cups. At least, I think that's the way it adds up. Store brand peanut butter is often on sale for a dollar for about a pound, or about 4 cents per tablespoon. A twelve ounce bag of mung beans costs less than a dollar from the Asian market, and there's about 23 tablespoons per bag, or less than 5 cents per tablespoon if you want to make bean sprouts.

Some stuff is harder to figure out. The 17 ounce bottle of hot sauce says that it has 96 teaspoons. But the bottle is half empty, so I must use a lot more than a teaspoon. The bottle costs two dollars, so that's about 2 cents per teaspoon.

Fruits and vegetables are hard to figure out in a budget, unless they are in cans. If I bought a 15 ounce can of tomatoes or corn or something for 50 cents, I would want half of the can. But that would be 25 cents, which would be too much to pay on the dollar a day thing. If a fresh vegetable is two dollars a pound, I have trouble figuring out how much that is for a serving, but again, probably too much. On the other hand, the over-ripe bananas are often twelve for a dollar, or about 8 cents each. And on rare occasions oranges are on sale twenty for a dollar, or 5 cents each.

I record all of this to figure out my own budget. If someone else used my numbers it would probably come out all wrong, since food might not cost the same in other parts of the country. And not everyone has an Asian market or a Mexican market.

Okay, so today isn't such a good day to try the dollar thing. But I haven't given up on the idea of trying it at some point. And this week I plan to really watch how much I spend and what I eat, even if I can't keep it down to a dollar a day.

Alone for the week

Okay, my husband went out of town on business, and I have the place to myself. We usually discuss the idea of me going with him, but it wasn't much of a discussion this time.

The house is a mess, and I have no excuse to go out of town when there is so much work here for me to do.

Also, we are very short on money, and in despite of all the plans we make to not spend money when we are out of town, we usually end up spending anyway. He still spends some without me, but not as much. When I am with him we are tempted to act like we are on vacation.

And, when I stay home by myself, I am also less likely to spend money. He likes to eat out at every opportunity, even if it just going to get a fast food hamburger. If he is going, I like to go with him, but I don't feel like I need to do that when I'm here by myself. I will still go out with my friends on Saturday, but I will try not to go out until then.

As for the work around here that I should be doing, well, that is off to a slow start as usual. You can see that it is about one, and I'm wasting my time on the computer. We went to Whataburger for breakfast, and then after that I've had the place to myself since just before nine. I haven't done much except blog and check email and such.

But I usually don't do much the first day, which doesn't always mean that I waste the whole week.

I'm writing another post, but I must take a break from blogging now. Time for lunch.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired

I don't feel well today. I don't have the flu or a cold or suspect that I have food poisoning or any of that stuff. I have a bit of a queasy stomach off and on, mostly off this week, but Monday wasn't a great day. I had another annoying aliment to deal with Tuesday and took something for it and should have been good to go by yesterday. And now today I seem to have yet a third thing to deal with.

This stuff used to happen to me all the time twenty years ago. I was convinced that something was really wrong with me, that no matter how smart I was or how good a person I was, I would never be able to keep a job because I just seemed to feel bad so often. And of course when there was nothing really wrong with me and I was starting to feel good enough to go out and do stuff, then it would be that time of the month, which meant a lot of pain and usually three days in bed.

Really, who wants to hire someone who spends at least three days a month in bed?

But I found that birth control pills helped with that, and I've been taking them most of the time since I was eighteen. With that problem under control, I found that I felt better the rest of the month too, and I had a few jobs in college, mostly during the summer break.

About a year or two after I got married, I had some other problems. I won't go into them. Just that I know other women have had to deal with similar things once in a while, but I seemed to have to deal with them all the time. One problem would clear up and a week or two later I would have to deal with something else. I would get very tired after having done little or no work. Twice I was taken off of the birth control pills and told that a rest from them might help. I didn't have a job then, but with my husband's weird schedule it was hard to have a job anyway.

Most of it just seemed to be nerves or something. Except for having to take birth control pills and getting colds and such occasionally like everyone else, I thought that I was all better.

And then I seemed to get tired more than I used to. And then all this stuff happened to me. And then I started having problems that I haven't had in years.

And I wonder if there's something really wrong with me. But it is probably just nerves like before.

Only before I thought that I was really happy. I had a reason to want to feel better and go out and do things. I don't feel like that now. I just don't want to feel bad, but when I do feel bad I don't have any desire to do anything. I'll fine with staying in bed all day if that's what it takes. I would rather not feel bad, but I have no plans to do much of anything once I feel better.

So last night I realized that I was having the symptoms of yet another ailment. I haven't had this particular problem in such a long time that I was a bit slow in trying to do something about it. I don't go the the doctor a lot, cause I figure that mainly I'm going to get a lecture on prevention and then told to stay in bed and drink lots of fluids. I don't need a lecture, and I can stay in bed and drink fluids without paying a doctor to tell me that. But there are a couple of times that I have to go to the doctor, and I was thinking that today might be one of those times. I usually wait a couple of days, but I didn't get much sleep last night. Maybe I should just go. And today is payday, so we should have some money coming in. Not much money cause of the seasonal layoffs, but some.

I've checked, and there's no money. He is going out of town next week, and there's not enough money for him to go out of town and for me to go to the doctor.

So I guess that I'm not going to the doctor after all.

Only two months ago, the end was in sight

I thought that I was finally going to have a clean and orderly house. Or, at least, I would have something pretty close to a clean and orderly house. Possibly I would need different furniture and such for it to really be what I want, but I was doing a lot of cleaning and I thought that I would soon have all of that done.

And that was only two months ago that I thought that. I had done some really major cleaning, the kind that requires bookcases and such to be moved so that I can clean next to the walls and such. So I had done all of that, and I had thrown away tons of stuff. I still needed to deal with one room, but all the major stuff in most of the other rooms was done, and I imagined myself next going through some of my book collection and possibly taking some of that to Half Price Books before trying to reorganize the arts and crafts supplies.

And then I took a break from the serious sorting and cleaning to get ready for Christmas and finish up with the ceramics stuff. And somehow taking this break has resulted in there being an even bigger mess than there was to start with.

I realize that that isn't entirely true. I did all the serious work of moving the bookcases and cleaning behind the furniture in most of the rooms, and that part will not need to be done again this year. But it does look like the rest of it is a bigger mess than before I started. And I realize that really can't be true either, but it certainly does look that way.

Christmas was two weeks ago, but somehow I didn't get much work done during that time. I didn't try to tackle the mess again until the day before yesterday. Why is there still so much stuff to deal with? I could almost just sit there and cry about it.

I can't even think why I have done so little work since Christmas. I had a few days that I didn't feel well, and there's always a bit of after-Christmas packing up to do that I put off until after all the clearance sales. I think that Targets went down to 90% off on Monday, but I'm not sure, cause I didn't go on Monday. There's not enough left to drive to any of them unless I'm going there for something else anyway. There's candy canes and a bit of wrapping paper and lots of cards. I have enough candy canes, and I don't think I'll need much in the way of wrapping paper, and I'm not a card person. I tried doing the cards one year, and then I realized that you could end up spending more on the cards than I could afford for the actual gifts, so that was the end of my sending cards.

So I suppose that I traditionally don't do much in the way of cleaning during the two weeks after Christmas, but that doesn't seem to be a good excuse this year, since I didn't have much money to buy clearance stuff.

Anyway, after two days of serious cleaning in the one room, I have finally made a dent in the mess. But that's all it is, a dent. There's still a large mess to deal with before I'll be turning my attention back to the rooms that I thought that I'd already dealt with.

My husband is scheduled to go to Shreveport for a week. There's really nothing exciting about going to Shreveport anymore, but I usually go with him anyway to relax and/or do some serious knitting. But I probably won't go this time due to the mess. In theory, part of the reason I don't get much work done is that when he is here we find reasons put off work. Wouldn't you like to go to lunch? And you think that whatever you were going to do can wait til after lunch. And of course after lunch you go to the library, or you do some shopping, or you run some other errands. By the time you get back from "lunch" you are tired, maybe you actually take a nap, and by the time you feel like doing anything else it is time for dinner. And that's what happens on a day that we really had nothing planned. Sometimes we actually have plans and go to a movie or something.

So the fact is that I don't get that much done when he's at work, and I get even less done when he's not at work. And he's usually not at work much around Christmas.

Big, huge mess. If I were in college, I could win awards with this mess. I realize that after years of collecting junk it gets this way, but how did it get this way again so soon after cleaning so much of it two months ago?

Not really a moron, but...

Well, that's okay, cause by the time I finish writing this it won't even be Monday when you get to read it.

I used to go out with my friends about three times a month. That was on a normal month, when there was nothing special going on and it wasn't Halloween or Christmas or New Year's Eve or someone's birthday ending in zero, etc.... So sometimes I used to go out with my friends more than three times a month. But there were three regularly scheduled things every month, and I used to go to all of them. One of them was a dinner on a Sunday night for just anyone who could make it that month, and that would be at a different restaurant, just depending on what was suggested. One of them was a club meeting, and after that ended several of us would go to dinner afterward at a certain restaurant, and maybe we would still go someplace else after that. Then the third thing was a meetup at a bookstore, usually followed by going to dinner at a certain other restaurant. The thing at the bookstore was kind of dull, and I sometimes wonder why we bother with it. We should just find out who is going and head straight to the restaurant. Or we should only stay at the bookstore for half an hour or so, and get to the restaurant sooner, before we have to wait in line.

Due to the price of gas and other money problems and such, I decided that I didn't have to go out with my friends that often. I would still like to see them, but I wouldn't treat it as an obligation, just something that I would try to do if I had the money and the time and such. I still tried to make the main meeting and dinner afterward, but I did not think that I needed to be at every single Sunday night dinner, just the ones that were at a restaurant that I wanted to go to and when I knew that I had enough money for it not to be a problem. The thing at the bookstore was a bit of a drive, and the fun part was dinner afterward, and dinner requires money and often a long wait to get into the restaurant. So I wouldn't miss the thing at the bookstore that much if I stopped going.

One of my friends never goes to the Sunday dinner thing anyway. For one thing, she has allergies and such, and usually just doesn't want to go wherever we are going anyway. The other thing is that she refuses to go anywhere on a Sunday night, unless it is a long weekend and she doesn't have to go into work on Monday morning. I don't quite get that. I understand not wanting to stay out late Sunday night, because most of us have to get up in the morning, so the Sunday night dinner rarely goes past eight or nine, depending on what time of year it is. But regardless of what time the evening is scheduled to end, she just refuses to leave her apartment. It's like she's already feeling sorry for herself for the bad day at work she assumes that she will have on Monday.

Okay, so I had stopped going to at least half of the Sunday night dinner things, and then I was going to stop going to the thing at the bookstore. It was a longer drive than I liked, and then the price of gas really went up. I think that I said something along the lines of I had planned to stop going, and I mentioned that I really shouldn't spend the money to go to dinner afterwards, and it really wasn't as much fun if I skipped the dinner.

Knowing that I was short on money, one of my friends got me a gift card to the restaurant we normally went to after the bookstore. So that was a nice thought, and I figured that I could at least go two more times so that I could use the gift card. Only the next time that we got together, the wait at the restaurant was really long, and the group decided to go to a steak place down the road instead. I don't really like steak, and it usually costs more money than I want to spend. They serve a few other things, but most of the other things cost just as much as a steak, so if I'm going I usually end up buying the steak. And the smell of the steak is wonderful, and the first few bites are pretty good, and then I sort of remember that I don't really like steak that much. But I figured that once in a while it was no big deal.

And then the next time that we were at the bookstore, someone who isn't really one of my close friends but more of a friend of a friend jumped up and said that we should go to the steak place again. And I explained that I didn't have much money, but I could go to the regular place because I had the gift card. But this guy really wanted the steak place, and I got talked into going with them and buying a hamburger. Hamburgers are not my favorite thing either, especially when they cost seven dollars or more.

After we went to the steak place a third time, I decided I didn't need to go back to the bookstore thing for a while. And so I've had this gift card for the restaurant a whole year, and I've resisted the urge to just go to the place some other night and just have dinner with my husband.

So I've just been going to the regular meeting and the dinner afterwards. The restaurant has changed three times over the years, because my friend with the food allergies will only go to certain places, and a couple of those places have closed. She has a few really serious allergies, and if she has those foods she might have to go to the hospital. And then there is a ton of other stuff that she won't eat, because it might give her an upset stomach later. So no spicy foods, and most of the time she has to make a special order, and she'll only go to restaurants she thinks will let her make special orders. So we never go to a barbecue place, because barbecue is prepared for several hours before the customer even gets to the restaurant, and you can't special order barbecue with no spices. And we can't go to a Mexican restaurant because of the spicy food, and we can't go to a Cajun place because of the spicy food, etc.... And even though some stuff on the Chinese buffet is very bland she just doesn't like the idea of buffets anyway, and so we can't go there either.

After our first two restaurants closed, we are now regulars at Outback Steakhouse. Only I still really don't like steak, but that is the closest place that will let her special order stuff and everyone else in the group seems to like it okay. I have decided that I have had enough of steak, and from now on I am going to just order the clam chowder, even if that does make me look cheap. My friend with the food allergies doesn't seem to like steak that much either, and she special orders the chicken.

So after all of this time, the price of gas has gone down, and I decide to go to this bookstore thing and go to dinner with them afterwards, assuming that they are going to the regular restaurant and not the other steak place. After the Christmas shopping, I really have no money left, and most of my friends know that. But I've still got that gift card, so I can still go to dinner with them if they go to that restaurant. And I am relieved when the friend's friend who really likes steak doesn't show.

So after some time at the bookstore and getting distracted with conversations on subjects I care nothing about, like TV shows about dance competitions, it is time to decide what if any purchases we are going to make and then head over to the restaurant.

Only my friend with the food allergies jumps up and says that she is dying for a steak.

Since when does she like steak? We go to Outback Steakhouse every month, and she always orders the chicken.

So I said something about going to the other restaurant, cause I had this gift card, but I only had about ten dollars of cash left and I didn't want to spend it.

Instead of saying something like she didn't realize that going to the steak place was a problem for me, my friend then tries to talk me into going to the steak place and buying a seven dollar hamburger.

No, I don't think so. If we're not going to the regular restaurant I'll just go home. I don't want to spend the last of my cash on a hamburger that I don't even want.

So she is fine with going to the steak place without me. And they didn't vote or anything, she just decided that was where they were going. And my other friends came back from buying their books and asked which place we were going to, and I said that I was going home because the other girl had to have a steak. One of my friends just shrugged. If they had been there when she decided where we were going, they would have seen my problem and suggested going to the other restaurant. But if we tried to talk her out of it now, after it had been decided, even though she was the only one who decided, it would get ugly.

My friend with the allergies kept talking about getting a steak and how hungry she was, etc.... This was on a Saturday night, but somehow having a steak on Saturday night would help her feel better at work on Monday morning. Besides how stupid this statement sounds, if having steak on a Saturday night helps her have a better day at work on Monday morning, why doesn't she have steak every month when we go to Outback Steakhouse? The friend who bought me the gift card is looking from me to my friend with the allergies, like she doesn't know what to say without one of us getting upset. I say that I don't have much cash money left, and I can't use my gift card at the steak place, and I might as well just go home rather than spend the last of my money on something I really don't want.

The friend with the allergies says that's a good idea, and she doesn't blame me a bit for not going.
One of my friends tries one last time to get me to go, saying that I can just use her credit card to buy dinner. But I don't want to owe her money, so I say no thanks and go home.

I really don't think that I need to go to this bookstore thing anymore.

Day One

Okay, so it's the first day of the year, and the whole New Year's resolutions thing is already messed up. Not that I was making specific resolutions, but I was going to try doing a number of different things just to see what would happen, and I was planning to start with two weeks of trying to do the dollar a day diet thing.

Not that I planned to be as strict with the whole thing as the couple who did that back in September. But I was going to start planning what I eat, not just eat anything that I happen to want at the time. I was going to start with the dollar a day thing for a bit, just to see if I could do it, and that seems to be the thing to start with due to the seasonal layoffs and the lack of money that follows. Then I could move on to trying to eat mainly things that are good for me and cutting back on sugar. And then I might finally try to actually count calories and lose some weight.

So the two weeks of eating a dollar a day should have started today, but it won't. Tuesday night I got sick. Not I'm afraid I'm going to die sick, but the kind of sick that keeps you from getting to sleep because you keep running to the bathroom just in case you need to throw up. And since I had feel asleep before dinner, there really wasn't anything to throw up, just I kept feeling that way and couldn't back to sleep. I finally gave up and decided to watch some TV. I finally got two hours or so of sleep, watched some more TV, and then spent most of Wednesday in bed trying to take a nap but never really getting comfortable enough to get any real sleep.

So after getting sick like that, and for several days afterwards, I generally do not even try to eat what I am supposed to. I will eat whatever will probably not make me sick, even if it is something that isn't good for me in the long run. So I might eat a whole sleeve of crackers, followed by an entire box of cookies and a bottle of ginger ale and a few Cokes. The only thing good for me that I might manage to eat is chicken soup. After a day or two of that, I feel like I am starving, and then I go out for hamburgers or pizza.

I did still manage to get to the party last night, and I ate a lot of chips and desserts and such there too. The only good for me thing I ate yesterday was a few celery sticks and some humus.

Well, maybe I can watch what I eat next week.

I'm a bit ticked at Target

Okay, so every year after Halloween and Christmas I go to the clearance sales and load up for stuff for next year, and I buy a bit of candy and other food stuff while I'm there. And my preferred store for this after holiday shopping is Target. Though I do stop in at a few other stores, Target is the main one that I make a special trip for.

So after Christmas the stuff is 50% off, and then almost a week later it goes down to 75% off. And that is when I buy most of the stuff, when it is 75% off. So I was expected the 75% off sale to start maybe Wednesday, but I decided to go and have a look at the stuff yesterday.

And to my surprise the 75% off sale had started. So I bought a few things, and then I headed to a larger store down the road, because they usually have more stuff left.

Only when I got to the larger store their stuff was still only 50% off. This has never happened to me before. Always before, the sales started on the same day in all the stores. So I asked one of the employees about it, and he said he didn't know what was going on, cause he'd also heard that the store by the mall had already started their 75% off sale. So I thanked him and headed to the store buy the mall. But they were only 50% off too.

So that was weird. I don't know if it's a Dallas versus Tarrant thing or what. Anyway, I wasted most of the afternoon looking at clearance stuff but not really buying much of anything.

Today I will go and look at a fourth store, just to see what they have left. I'm not needing that much for next year anyway, but I was hoping to get some food stuff, some of it it for the party tomorrow. I really don't cook much party stuff, except for the weird food contest at Halloween.

Monday Morons--Don't be stupid

I have to listen to my husband say this just about any time I've pointed out that he's wrong about something, or I won't agree to something he wants, etc....

I am tired of the fights and such, and I've told him that I've said what I had to say, and that since he isn't listening I won't be unnecessarily upsetting myself by saying any of it again. So there's no reason to have any serious decisions about anything until he's actually going to change. If he wants to change, he can change. If he wants to continue as he is and pretend that everything is all better, he at least needs to stop doing the things that he already knows upset me before all the major trouble started, and he needs to keep his mouth shut about the rest of it.

So he wanted to talk about something, and I didn't really think that he wanted to talk about anything that was going to upset me. I thought that at most he wanted to talk about the money situation or the job situation or him trying to get his own business started. Whatever.

What he wanted to tell me was that the spare bed was in his way, and he wanted to move it.

This is one of those things that I've already said what I had to say, and he isn't supposed to mention the issue anymore. It's a small thing really, and right now it doesn't really bother me, but he's actually supposed to be sleeping on the spare bed. If anyone should be complaining about anything, I should be complaining that he isn't sleeping on it. But I've gotten used to it and have stopped talking about it. And then he actually has the nerve to tell me that the bed is in his way.

Anyway, even if he doesn't sleep in here regularly anymore, it does make me feel a little better that the bed is here, and that if we ever have a big fight I can kick him out of my room without actually having to kick him out of the house. So there is no way that I'm going to move the bed, much less dismantle it like he wants, and he knows this very well as we have already had this discussion many times before. He either just isn't listening, or he enjoys seeing me upset.

So I didn't get as upset as I have in the past, because it's just not worth it. But I had to repeat myself yet again, point out that the bed is not going to be moved, at least as long as we both live here, and that he really should be sleeping on the bed instead of complaining about it.

And to that he says "Don't be stupid."

That is his response to just about everything when we are fighting, because he doesn't have any rational arguments. There are no points on his side of anything.

If I point out that our current situation is entirely his fault, he might first point out that was "a long time ago." I'm not sure how he thinks he gets points for that. That something was a long time ago just means that a long time has been wasted that might have been spent trying to make things better, so you don't get points, you lose points for wasting more of my time. To that he says "Don't be stupid." Or sometimes he just starts with "Don't be stupid," and skips the rest of his argument.

"Don't be stupid" has also been the answer to "Why didn't you just leave her at the airport?" "Why did you bother calling me and telling me that I was right about everything if you didn't really think that I was right about everything and willing to do what I said?" "Besides the fact that you've done something terribly hurtful and immoral, you went against the court orders to do it." "If you were anyone else I would have called the police and you'd be sitting in jail right now."

There are a lot more things that get the same response, but those are too personal and I won't write them.

Anyway, I never can figure out if he's really this stupid, or if he has some legitimate medical problem that causes memory lose, or if he just likes getting into fights for some reason.

Christmas 2008

Okay, so now it is over. Except for the club New Year's Eve party, which technically isn't Christmas, but it just sort of blurs together into one holiday for me. And then there's the after holiday clearance sales, which will go on until about the middle of next month. But except for that, Christmas is over. And really, the sales are more about getting ready for next year, if I would actually get a head start and do that.

Christmas with my family was a bit dull compared to Christmas stuff with my friends. Not that I don't like spending time with my family, but the gift exchange part wasn't as much fun. It wasn't really bad, just not really the way that I'd pictured it either.

So we had decided not to exchange gifts with everyone. I had thought that we were going to draw names, and that there was a limit of forty dollars. And that we were going to draw names on Thanksgiving. Drawing names on Thanksgiving seems a bit late to me, but that's what was decided.

Later I was told that nothing was decided. We did not draw names on Thanksgiving. On Black Friday I did some shopping, but no actual shopping for Christmas gifts, as I did not know who I needed to buy gifts for. Later that day, it was decided that instead of drawing names we would do the Chinese gift exchange. Actually, it was decided that we would do two, one with a thirty dollar gift, and one with either a five dollar gift or a recycled gift.

Okay, that still would have been good to know before Black Friday.

Still, with money the way it is, it was better than going out and getting everyone a gift and spending like two hundred dollars or more.

So I had to come up with four gifts, two thirty dollar gifts and two five dollar gifts. Five dollar gifts are not a problem. But what are you supposed to do about thirty dollar gifts if you don't know who you are buying them for?

The first thirty dollar gift was Bath and Body Works stuff. I had bought that stuff earlier in the year, when it was on sale, and when money was not such a problem. I had figured that I should go ahead and buy the stuff because I might draw my sister's name, and that would be a good present for her. Or I might draw my mother's name. And since my husband would also have to draw a name, we might end up with both my sister's name and my mother's name and need Bath and Body Works stuff for both of them. And then if I didn't draw the name if someone who would want it, I could just keep it for myself. But then we switched to this idea of the Chinese gift exchange, and I didn't know what to do. I then decided that I should still give the Bath and Body Works stuff. My sister might end up with it, or my mother might end up with it. If my brother-in-law ended up with it, he would just give it to my sister anyway. We might end up getting stuck with taking home our own gifts. In all the combinations of exchanges I could think of, either I would end up with my own gift, someone who actually wanted the stuff would get it, or the significant other of someone who wanted it would get it and it would not go to waste. About the only way I could think of it going wrong was if my brother got stuck with it. So I decided that if my brother ended up with it I would offer to trade it for a couple of DVDs I had bought.

The second thirty dollar gift I put in wasn't really a thirty dollar gift, but a scarf that I spent many hours making. This was my first cable scarf, and I hid it from my husband thinking that he might end up with it. I pictured it this way, my husband would open the scarf, and either my husband would keep the scarf, or else someone else would just love the scarf and steal it. But I didn't explain this to my husband, and he didn't seem to have any interest in seeing my scarf. My husband got a movie picked out by my brother. I got a bunch of pens, which the person who brought the gift thought that everyone could use. And my brother in law ended up with the scarf, and he said nice things about it, but I don't really know if he liked it or if he was just pretending cause he didn't want to get stuck with these pens.

If my husband had picked my scarf, we probably could have taken home the scarf and the DVD, and someone else would have gotten these pens. He hasn't expressed one word of disappointment at not getting the scarf, or even a comment of liking the scarf. At this point I'm thinking that I might not bother to make him another one, especially since he is complaining of the knitting machine being in his way.

My brother in law had the idea of just making out a shopping list for whomever might draw someone's name. I liked that idea better than this Chinese gift exchange thing. Except that the five dollar part was fun. But everyone else seemed to think that was lacking in the Christmas spirit if someone just tells you what to buy. The Chinese gift exchange was supposed to be fun and not hurt anyone's feelings if they didn't get what they wanted. But if there is a shopping list available, aren't you guaranteed of getting at least one thing that you wanted, and then after Christmas you can just go and buy the rest of the stuff yourself?

I'd like next year to draw names and have that shopping list that my brother in law suggested, hopefully getting the name and the list before Halloween, and then still have the five dollar gift Chinese gift exchange. In fact, I would like to have two five dollar gifts in the Chinese gift exchange. That way there would be more stealing and be more fun. But I thought that the thirty dollar part was a bit of a disappointment, except for my husband getting the DVD he wanted. And my sister did end up with the Bath and Body Works stuff.

The club stuff seemed a lot more fun, even if half of the people on my list didn't get me anything.

I was going to make this the last year that I did club stuff, but I would really miss it. I was thinking that I just don't have the energy to do both family stuff and club stuff, and if I was going to give up something it should be the club stuff. Somehow it seems really cold to want to give up any Christmas stuff with family.

Sometimes I really just want to move to another state and just come home for a visit or something. Just get my yarn and my ceramics and be someplace totally different and not have to think about stuff anymore.

I'm as talented as Bob and Doug, right?

On the first day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: a Vir.

On the second day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: two paperbacks and a Vir.

On the third day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: three gold pins, two paperbacks and a Vir.

On the fourth day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks and a Vir
in a tree.

On the fifth day of Christmas my buddies gave to me:
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

On the sixth day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: six pointy knives,
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

On the seventh day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: seven expensive tools, six pointy knives,
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

On the eighth day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: eight Egyptian gods, seven expensive tools, six pointy knives,
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

On the ninth day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: nine scenes of Clooney naked, eight Egyptian gods, seven expensive tools, six pointy knives,
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

On the tenth day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: ten free dinners, nine scenes of Clooney naked, eight Egyptian gods, seven expensive tools, six pointy knives,
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: eleven cards with lights, ten free dinners, nine scenes of Clooney naked, eight Egyptian gods, seven expensive tools, six pointy knives,
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my buddies gave to me: twelve flying dragons, eleven cards with lights, ten free dinners, nine scenes of Clooney naked, eight Egyptian gods, seven expensive tools, six pointy knives,
five Hogwarts scarves,
four cool T-shirts, three gold pins, two paperbacks, and a Vir in a tree.

Christmas 2008 isn't over yet

Sometimes I get so into the club stuff that the holiday stuff I do with the club seems more like the holiday than the holiday itself. After the Halloween party on the fourth Saturday of October, I half expect the clearance sales to be the next day, even if Halloween doesn't actually occur until the following Friday. And in recent years I find that I have more to do for the club activities the weekend before Christmas than I actually have to do for Christmas itself.

This year, I had decided that I needed to try to tone down the holiday stuff. I started with Halloween, and decided not to enter the costume contest, but tried out being a judge instead. That went okay. So then I needed to find a way to tone down the Christmas stuff.

Without getting into all the details, my family has decided that due to the economic problems and other changes this year, we would not continue the tradition of buying gifts for everyone in the family, and we would limit the gift buying to about forty dollars. Last year I spent almost that on each person.

And I expect that there will be changes in the coming year that will result in my either having less money or less free time or both. So I've been thinking that I should tell my friends that this might be the last year I do the whole Christmas thing with them. In the past few years, I've enjoyed the unofficial gift exchange with my friends more than the gift exchange with my family, cause I usually have a better idea of what to get for my friends. Except for my sister, I don't really know what the rest of my family wants.

This wasn't always the case. We didn't always exchange gifts. But one year, we just all seemed to get the same idea at the same time, and found something that we just knew that someone else would love to have, and without planning it ahead of time, we just brought presents. So for the past five years or so, this has been a major part of Christmas for me.

As in last week's episode of The Big Bang Theory, there is this whole problem of gift giving, and which friends should you get gifts for, and how much should you spend on each person, and if you get someone else a gift are you expecting to get one in return. To quote Sheldon, "You haven't given me a gift, you've given me an obligation," to try to give the other person "a gift of commensurate value and representing the same perceived level of friendship." It isn't supposed to be like that, you've supposed to just give people gifts because you like giving gifts, but there doesn't seem to be this expectation that there is this exchange of gifts.

There are exceptions. For instance, I expect to get gifts for people who will not be getting me gifts, not because they don't like me but because they have some problem and therefore either don't have the money or the time to go and get gifts. Like I don't expect someone to get me a gift if someone in their family is dying of cancer, but unless I've specially been asked not to, I go ahead and get them a gift, because when I'm out getting all the other gifts I decide that I just don't want them left out. Or if the person is widowed, especially if recently widowed (within this year). Or if they've had major medical bills. Or if they've been out of work. Or if they've had major vet bills. Or if they've had a car wreck. Or if their house was flooded or hit by a meteor.

And my current money situation isn't very good, so I think that I could have begged out of the thing this year. But I really didn't want to. What I wanted to do, was go ahead with it this year, and maybe beg out next year and maybe for a long time after that. But I had already started getting people stuff, and I didn't want to not give those gifts, and I didn't want to get some of them gifts and not give other people gifts. So I got gifts for six of them, knowing that I might only get gifts from two of them. There's someone who was recently widowed, a couple with a lot of unexpected bills, and a buddy who doesn't have a steady job. And then I go ahead and give a seventh gift to a buddy's wife, cause we're friends even though she doesn't usually do club stuff.

And then on top of all that, there is the official gift exchange, and I usually don't end up with anything really cool, but to be fair, I think maybe it has been a while since I've put in anything really cool. I brought Bath & Body Works stuff and took home a DVD collection of Japanese monster movies. But that is just so much fun to watch, since it is like the Chinese gift exchange, and people steal stuff. There was a lot of stealing this year.

Okay, so the recent widow says that she won't be joining us for most of the evening, cause she has to be somewhere else. I got her some bath stuff anyway. I give bath stuff when I don't know what else to do, but in this case I actually know that she prefers bath stuff. I haven't yet made her a scarf or anything like that, cause I'm not sure she'd like it and I can't bring myself to make a scarf for someone unless I'm sure that they would like it. But I'm absolutely sure that she'll use the bath stuff. And she says something about having gifts at home for people, but not having the time to wrap them and such. But I wasn't expecting anything from her anyway.

And then I made a scarf for my buddy who doesn't have a steady job. And he gave us all cards. Really cool cards with blinky lights. We like gadgets and blinky lights.

To the couple with the unexpected bills I gave a scarf and a school art project. This was the main reason I did not want to beg out this year. Every year for the last five years I've given a scarf to one person I thought would really want one, and I still needed to give this last one. So now all of that original group has a scarf, except for the widow and the pilot's wife, and I'll make more for them too if I ever here for certain that they really want one. As for the school art project, this is exactly what the couple would have wanted, if it had been perfect, which I knew that it wasn't, but they didn't seem to notice.

I gave up trying to think what to get for the pilot, so I gave him a DVD for a movie that I found on sale and I really like, and then I gave him a gift certificate to get another DVD from Blockbuster. And then I added a bath thing for his wife, because they don't always have the same taste in movies. He gave everyone knives. Mine is especially sexy.

For K I got a stuffed animal and knitted some leg warmers and arm warmers. She gave me a really cool T-shirt.

And then the pilot and K remembered my birthday. I did not get them anything for their birthdays, but K got me jewelry and the pilot got me some tools. The tools were possibly above the "commensurate value and representing the same perceived level of friendship." But I didn't have extra bath stuff in the car to make up for it.

I've said that I want to be excused from Christmas next year, but this was really a lot of fun. Especially the part where the couple was going on and on about the school art project. But I'm not planning any school next year, I don't think that I'll have much in the way of extra money, and now they all have scarves. I can't knit much other than scarves, and somehow I don't think that the pilot and the other guys want leg warmers.

But my brain is already at work, thinking up different kinds of scarves, and maybe some of them would like painted eggs. I don't think that I've ever given any of them painted eggs.

So that was Saturday. I wasn't going to do the charity thing Sunday, for several reasons. One being that I didn't put anything until the charity thing (except for one dollar when they passed the hat), I didn't do the usual candy stuff so I didn't have a speaking part anyway, I couldn't find some of my costume, and we usually go to dinner afterwards and I knew that I shouldn't spend any more money. So I wasn't going to go, but then I heard that we were going to be short at least three costumed people, so I decided that if I could find enough of the costume that I should go anyway. I didn't find my boots and I didn't find my vest, but I did have my dress and cape and scarf, so I put on just regular shoes and went anyway. Afterwards, the widow offered to buy me dinner as my Christmas gift, so that all worked out okay.

And then the pilot's wife gave me a plant. I like plants, though unfortunately it seems like I end up killing most of them that I receive as gifts. She said that I'm the only one who remembers her as a separate person and gives her a separate gift at Christmas, so she got me a separate gift too. Hardly necessary, especially after the expensive tools, but a nice surprise anyway.

So that was all really great. And it isn't really Christmas yet.

More shopping with Mom

I believe Bulletholes called this an opportunity to learn patience.

Okay, my mom keeps saying how just the two of us need to get together and maybe go shopping or maybe go to lunch. Okay, I have no problem with that. Call me when you want to do something.

So after she keeps saying this, when she finally calls this week I feel bad that I don't want to go. I'm very busy this week. The party is Saturday, and the charity thing is Sunday, and as it is I'm thinking that I'm just going to skip the charity thing. I don't have the money for the charity thing, and the getting dressed up and such takes energy that I just don't feel right now. If I had a bit more time I could probably find that paper and do the gift basket thing that I normally do, but that's probably just not going to happen, and I think that I might feel better if I just don't go.

Except that my friend really wants me to go, and this is her big deal, and I hate to bail on her.

So I'm already busy with the knitting and such, and my mom wants to know if I can go shopping with her, at the mall, on Friday, at a sale that doesn't even start until four in the afternoon. On a normal day, this doesn't seem like such a good idea to me. If I want to go to the mall, it usually isn't on a weekend. Between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening there's lots of people, and I'd rather be there with less people. And I don't like being out late in the day, unless it's something I've planned for. If I go shopping, I like to go home before six, not just get started at four.

Oh, and it's a week before Christmas.

So even if I wasn't very busy, this already has a lot of things wrong with it that make it not seem like a good idea to me. But it seems like my mom really wants to go to this particular sale, and it's not like I can arrange to have the sale postponed. So, okay, I've got some stuff to do, but she called earlier in the week and I think that I might be done with everything by three or so on Friday.

Okay, on Friday morning, most of the stuff is done, except the stuff for charity that I've mostly given up on. But there's still a little time left to think about that, if I can just get this other stuff done. I have to finish up some leg warmers, trim the fringe on two scarves and put fringe on two more scarves, but one of those scarves isn't needed Saturday. I'd already found wrapping paper and boxes and even some bags, and after that a went out and bought a few more bags and some tape. So the wrapping isn't done, but I think I have time to get it done, once I finish up with the scarves and leg warmers. I'm still thinking that I can just about get all of this done by three, except for the one scarf that I don't need til later.

And my mom calls at 12:30 and asks if I still want to go with her.

Sure.

Then she asks if I'm ready to go.

No, I'm not ready to go. I still have stuff to do. I thought that I had until three.

So then she's wanting to know what stuff I have to do. She sounds a bit ticked that I'm not ready to go.

I don't really want to get into it. That wastes time that I could be actually doing the stuff instead of talking about doing the stuff. And I thought that the sale didn't start until four.

Well, she didn't want to be out late, and she thought that we could do some other stuff first and then maybe get something to eat. And even though the mall stays open late, she didn't really want to be out late.

Me, I don't like to be out past six, unless I've planned to do that. Do I need to plan to do that?

Well, no, not really.

I don't believe her, so I set the VCR to record Ghost Whisperer and some other stuff. I don't really think we're going to be out that late, but I figure I might as well be on the safe side.

Okay, so I figure if she'll let me get back to what I was doing, that I can do the stuff the absolutely has to be done, and then if we're not going to be out much past six I can still have time to do the rest of it after I get home.

She has an errand to run. She's going to call me when she's done with that.

Okay, so I finish putting the fringe on the third scarf, but I haven't trimmed any of the scarves or finished up on the leg warmers. I go and find all the boxes that each gift will go in, and get that all laid out, but I only get one present actually wrapped. Four things still are knitting that needs to be trimmed or finished up, so I can't wrap them. I'm going to wrap the other stuff when my mom calls and asks if I can do something for her on the way over.

Okay. I'm not done yet, and I wasn't supposed to be driving, she was supposed to pick me up. But I figure that I've got enough stuff done that I can do the rest if we don't stay out past six or seven. It's all laid out and ready to go, sort of. Okay.

So I go and get whatever my mom wanted and I leave the car and we head to the mall. Only we stop someplace first cause she has to return stuff at another store.

Okay, cause it's on the way, but I never return stuff unless it's broken or something. Returning stuff is my mom's main hobby.

And then there's the cell phone. I finally got a cell phone a couple of years ago, for emergencies. I have all of my original minutes, plus that amount again. I've only had one emergency, and I don't use the phone that much other than that. Most phone stuff can wait til I get home, and of course I would never talk on the phone while driving or anything else.

While we were in this store just to return something, my mom called someone to ask what the name of something was so she could look for it. Fine. But then the someone called back to talk about I don't know what, and then a family member called to talk about another family member's illness.

We are not even at the mall yet, and she's talked to people on the phone as much as she's talked to me. If anyone calls me while I'm out, I only answer the phone long enough to say that I'm busy and they will have to call back later. I wouldn't even do that, except that it's an emergency phone, so maybe the call is an emergency. But usually not. In fact, it's usually a wrong number or something.

Okay, so we finally get to the mall, where we return some other thing, and then we head to the sale. And I pick up a few things that I want to try on, and my mom is like, as long as you're here you should try on some other stuff.

I don't like trying on clothes. I almost said that I don't like shopping, but that really isn't true. But I don't enjoy the part of trying on the clothes, so unless there's a good chance that I'm going to buy it if it fits, I don't take stuff to the fitting room.

So off we go to the fitting room. And most of the stuff doesn't look good on me.

Okay, I'm done.

My mom says something like if I decide that I like those pants, we can always come back to get them on the way out. Okay. And then there are a few more things that maybe I would have tried on, but I didn't see them, and she says something like maybe we can try them on later, on the way out. Okay. So we go and eat.

And I hadn't really noticed that I was already tired until I sat down. But maybe I'll fill better after we eat. So we're in the food court, and we've come here to eat something, or so I thought. But it seems to take forever for my mom to decide what to eat. So then we eat, and my mom throws away half of her food. She had wanted to share something, but she didn't want anything that I wanted. Plus she has a cold. I don't want to share stuff with her when she has a cold, even if she is convinced that she's past being contagious.

The mall is very noisy, and I'm having to yell a bit to get her to hear me. Then we go back to the shopping, and after trying on a lot of stuff that doesn't look good on me, we buy some black pants, and she pays for mine and says it's a Christmas present.

Okay, it's past six, we have pants, time to go.

Only she wants to look at other dumb stuff that she has to get sometime, but not really right now. She sorts through the underwear and socks, but doesn't find what she's looking for.

At some point she says something about having to try on a bunch of stuff just to see how it looks. No, I don't have to try on a bunch of stuff just to see how it looks. In fact, I can keep wearing the same ugly stuff I have if I want to. One pair of black pants is a necessity, but the rest of this stuff isn't. And I really don't enjoy looking.

We go to pay for the pants, and she gets a phone call. This is one of those times when I would just refuse to answer the phone. The cashier has a job to do, and it's not to wait for people to have phone conversations with other people. But my mom answers the phone and talks a bit and doesn't get rid of the caller right away, so the checkout process is delayed while the cashier has to ask all of these "would you like fries with that" sort of things that she has to say even when it is clearly a waste of time, because if she gets caught not saying them she'll get written up or fired. My mom gets rid of the caller and pays for the pants.

Only then she returns the call. I wait some more.

Okay, we're finally back in the mall headed for the store where the car is parked. It is like seven and I'm tired and ready to go.

And we get to the store, and we're getting on an escalator. I don't like escalators. One level is okay, but more than that and I look for the elevator. But it's just the one floor, and we are getting on the escalator, and I'm looking at my feet.

And then my mother wheels around and says that she forgot that I didn't like escalators.

Okay, I would have been fine if she hadn't done that.

Do I want to get on the escalator?

I don't know, is that where the car is?

No, but we've got more shopping to do.

I'm done. I didn't want to be here this late.

Well, I'm not done. Aren't you going to come with me?

If we have to go downstairs, I'll get on the escalator, but I'd rather just go home.

But we've hardly looked at any of the sale stuff.

I don't know why we have been all over the rest of the mall if she still cared about that sale. I thought she'd looked at it and decided she didn't want any of it.

If we have to go downstairs, I'll get on the escalator, but just get out of my way. I can't get on the escalator if you keep doing stuff to distract me.

At this point I'm told that I'm very unpleasant to be around. Seriously, I should have just been rude and canceled the whole thing. I had stuff to do. Being at the mall on a Friday night the day before the party and a week before Christmas was the last place I wanted to be, I just came because I thought I should spend some time with my mother. I want to go home.

My mom finds a leather jacket that's normally more than two hundred but is on sale for less than fifty. And it looks really good on her. We try on some other stuff, but it doesn't look good. And she wanted to buy stuff for other people, but it was sold out. She should have bought it when we first got there and put it in the car.

But I at least thought that the leather jacket was worth it. And she bought the leather jacket, but then she's saying she wishes it was just a little different and she'll probably take it back.

Great. I was thinking that it was worth all this to get her the jacket that really looked good on her, but she's probably going to take it back.

Just right when we are finally leaving, I find some stuff that I might have liked, but I'm too tired to even think about it. Should have just told her to buy them, and then she could take them back when she returns the jacket. But I didn't think of that.

So we get in the car, and she's saying that she's thirsty. I say that I think that my throat is sore from having to talk over the noise in the mall.

That doesn't make your throat sore. You must have already had a sore throat and didn't know it.

Sure I did.

And the phone rings again, and she answers it, while driving. She talks to the other person most of the way home.

I really don't learn. I should never go shopping with mom, even if she is going to buy me stuff.

I get back to the car and thank her for the dinner and the pants. I get home past nine, and I'm too tired to work on knitting or anything. It isn't that much work, but I'm afraid that I'll make a mistake, so it will have to wait.

The party is at two, and I still have to do laundry and such.

Panic Time

Okay, today is Thursday, and I'm going to need most of the stuff on Saturday. Which means that except for maybe wrapping up some gifts, almost everything needs to be done by Friday. On Friday afternoon, I am sort of committed to doing some stuff with my mom. Which means that I won't have that much time to do stuff on Friday, and most of it needs to be done on Thursday.

Today is Thursday.

At least, I think that today is Thursday. I'm a little confused at this point.

On the knitting front, I think all the actual knitting is done now, though I'm wishing that I had done an extra scarf just in case. But I still have a lot of finishing up to do, mainly putting fringe on four scarves. So that's like eight hours of work to do, if it goes smoothly, which sometimes it does not.

After yesterday's shopping trip, which I had decided would be my last for the season (except for this thing that I'm doing with my mom tomorrow which won't result in getting any of my shopping done and is cutting it too close anyway), I still did not find a present for the pilot. After consulting with another friend, she's decided to give him DVDs, with gift receipts just in case he already has them. So I asked if she thought he had certain DVDs, which she knew he did, because he loaned them to her. So then I asked which ones she got for him, and then she told me I should get him the next one that had been on her list. Only the next one on her list was a comedy that I haven't seen, and I'm thinking that it's not a good idea to get someone a DVD of a movie that I either don't like or haven't seen, unless I've heard from him that's what he wants, which I haven't heard.

At this point I think I'm going to give up and give him one of the movies I bought from Walmart for two dollars, which he can't really return anyway, and a gift certificate for Blockbuster, and then he can pick out his own DVD. And, if he gets previously viewed videos, maybe he can get two or three.

Now, usually when I have to resort to this, I make a gift basket or something that doesn't look as boring as just giving someone a gift card. Usually I do this whole thing with candy and popcorn and such. Only I don't have the stuff to do that right now, and I don't really have the time to go and get it, or even the money to do that really. That's really annoying this year, that I don't have money for those last minute things.

Speaking of not having money for last minute things, I'm thinking of skipping the charity thing on Sunday. I didn't get them anything, and often I do not get them very much, but I usually get all dressed up and go, and I usually make this funny gift basket thing with candy. This year, I don't even have much money for that. It would cost about ten dollars to do what I normally do. I suppose that I could buy smaller candy, but the thing that makes it fun is redoing all the wrappers, and if I buy smaller candy I'll have to design all new wrappers, which I don't have time to do. Also, I don't see the paper I use, so I'd have to go buy more, which would be another five to ten dollars if I had to buy a whole pack of it. I should already have two or three packs of it here, I just can't seem to find any of it.

And then there's the dinner after the charity thing, which is fun and I wouldn't want to skip, but again there's that money problem. Plus I'll probably have to buy dinner Saturday night, so I'll have even less money. I can either have dinner on Saturday or Sunday, but probably not both.

On top of all that, the house is a terrible mess, maybe worse than it's been in a long time, and I cannot find anything. I'm having trouble even finding the stuff that is mostly organized, like wrapping paper and such. I know where the wrapping paper is, but not the boxes and bows and bags and tape. Which means that if I don't find them after I finish the knitting that I should have to go out and buy some more, which some of that money that I don't really have, etc....

Panic

If you missed The Big Bang Theory...

And of course you probably did miss it, because you were watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, then you have to watch it now.

This is the best part, Penny's Christmas Gift to Sheldon, but if that's all you watch you won't get all of the jokes.

There's the rest of it:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Ramen noodles and the One Dollar Diet Project

Lately I have found myself clicking on some of the news headlines that I have to look at before I can read my emails and such. One headline was something about a sixteen cent meal. I clicked on it, thinking that it was going to be some sort of beans and rice recipe. It wasn't. It was an article about ramen noodles.

I'd forgotten about ramen noodles. I used to eat them all the time, but not so much recently. So I went out and bought a bunch of them and have enjoyed eating them. Not quite tired of them yet, but I probably would be if I had to live on them all the time.

So a few days ago I clicked on some other headline about saving money on food, and it led me to the One Dollar Diet Project blog, about a couple who tried to eat on one dollar a day for the month of September.

In the past I have tried to keep my meals down to a dollar each, but not three meals a day for a dollar. And then the dollar a meal didn't include milk or sodas or orange juice, or even the occasional dessert or popcorn or veggie snacks between meals.

A dollar a day? Can it be done?

Okay, this was more what I was thinking, with a lot of beans and rice.

The couple doing the experiment said they were vegan, so there were no eggs, and no milk and no cheese and no mention of what might be done with ten pounds of chicken leg quarters. Still, there were a lot of things that they didn't do that surprised me.

First thing was that they were trying to avoid eating ramen noodles. This is the main thing that some of us eat when we don't have any money. They bought six packages just in case, and only ended up using one or two of them. I don't remember them eating any humus. And there was no mention of bean sprouts. Really, those two are healthy and really really cheap if you make it yourself, and they didn't even mention either one. And they didn't figure out to try making soup until they were already twenty days into the experiment. And there was no mention of TVP either.

They did a couple of odd things, but it's their experiment, and they can do odd things if they want to. One thing was their rule that they didn't take free food that other people couldn't have. I would think that this rule was to prevent people from offering to have them over for dinner several nights a week during the experiment. But at least twice they turned down food that people really trying to save money would not have. In fact, this part of the experiment was on the wasteful side. They skipped a lunch that was bought buy their employers for everyone at work. I think that they should have gone to lunch with everyone else and just made a note of it that they didn't have to buy lunch that day and maybe try to spend a third or fourth less that day. But they skipped lunch, which meant that either someone else ate their share and gained weight, or their share was just thrown out. And they went someplace like a convention or a lecture, and they were offered free food but didn't eat any. Some of it they wouldn't have eaten anyway, cause it had bacon or some non-vegan thing, but again it seemed a waste to me to turn down food that was bought for you and probably ended up being thrown away.

I'm glad that they didn't crash parties or pretend to be college students and get free lasagna from the BSU or pretend to be interested in the Astronomy Club to get free pizza or donuts. But turning down free food seems silly, especially since they don't really object to free food, just free food that isn't available to everyone.

Then there was comments left on what they did consider free for the taking. While they turned down meals that were actually bought for them, they ate free samples at the grocery store, knowing that they had no intention of buying the items being sampled.

And then there was the stealing from McDonald's. Not that they stole Big Macs or anything, but they did go in and get ketchup and pancake syrup. Most of the people leaving comments thought that this was clearly stealing, since they were not customers. I'm not quite sure it is stealing, but it isn't the right thing to do either. If they had kept left over pancake syrup from an earlier trip, that would be good, because packets left on the table are probably thrown out anyway. And maybe some of us even ask for more than we plan to use that day, knowing that we can take home the extra and not have to buy that bottle of ketchup that we rarely use at home anyway. But I would never just go into a restaurant and ask to be given something if I wasn't a paying customer that day.

I think I would have liked it better if they got this "free" ketchup and mustard from gas stations. At least they were customers buying gas even if they did not buy the food that the mustard and ketchup were provided for.

I have not yet read all of the comments, but I have read some dumb ones. Some people just did not believe that a tablespoon of peanut butter only cost a nickel, or that beans or rice only cost a dime, etc.... Later they went and listed all that they bought for the experiment, and showed that if you buy a large quantity of rice that it only costs so much a cup, or if you buy the large four pound jar of peanut butter that it only costs a nickel per tablespoon, etc.... The main thing is that you make everything that you can from scratch, and that if you buy in bulk you get a discount. So this one comment made the valid point that poor people would not always have available cash to buy in bulk, or the membership to the discount club, etc...so if they had bought small packages of stuff at Safeway the daily cost would be more. Some of that is true. But then the commenter totally misses the point and produces a shopping list of what a poor person would buy at Safeway, with the ten envelopes of flavored oatmeal for two dollars and the four packages of microwave popcorn for a dollar and two cans of beans would cost a dollar, etc.... So the commenter missed the whole point, because I'm sure at Safeway one can buy plain oatmeal for a dollar a pound and also pound bags of beans and popcorn for a dollar.

I'm debating about doing a similar experiment myself, only I probably wouldn't do a whole month. Two weeks is more my speed. And I'll be eating ramen noodles if I want. And if someone buys me a free lunch, I'm going to eat it.

A catch up post

I don't think that I've blogged about what is going on much since Black Friday, except for that short trip that I took to the boring place.

I've now finished ceramics class. Unfortunately, I do not think that I will be taking the next class, unless I win the lottery or find a good job or something before the next class starts at the end of January. Probably just not going to happen. But I need to do other stuff, like clean and sort through the junk and get a job, and while I told myself that I wouldn't let the class become that important this time around, at the end of it I spent way too much time in the lab and started putting off things that were more important or time sensitive. So no ceramics for a bit, maybe for good.

At school there is that leaf vase that I really wasn't supposed to do and two bowls waiting to be glazed. Everything else that I did this semester came home with me a couple of days ago. Except for the two bowls, all the work I did for throwing class fit into this one box. On the one hand I don't think that it's not a bad looking lot for my first try at the wheel, and on the other hand everything is small and I didn't get a lot done. They look okay, but unfortunately my favorite piece was broken. It still looks pretty good, even with some of it broken off. I'm trying to think of something to add to it and make it a mixed media piece. Anyway, I think that I could figure out how to do some interesting stuff, if I had the time and money to take another course, which unfortunately I don't.

Maybe after I get a job I'll see about buying a used wheel.

About a week ago, we three girls went to the mall. Only because of the baby, we're now no longer three, and the baby isn't even a girl. So that was my first time to go shopping with the baby, and I was told that we probably wouldn't be out long because he would probably start fusing and they would have to go home. Only he didn't fuss. He likes shopping. And he likes having company over. And he likes going out to dinner.

People who are not even six months old should not care about going shopping or having company over, and they certainly should not care about going out to dinner when they can't even eat anything.

Maybe the kiddo is just weird. Anyway, he did not get all fussy, and so it was not a short day like I expected. Not that I didn't enjoy myself, but I got really tired. I wasn't expecting to stay out most of the day like that. If I'm not planning to be gone all day and into the evening, I don't like to be gone more than a few hours, and I'd really rather be home before six.

So I thought that we would go to the mall for a few hours, and then the baby would have had enough and he and his mom would go home. And then maybe just the two of us would go to lunch and talk, and then we would head home too. But, no. After a couple of hours, the baby had a bottle, and then he was good to go again. A couple of hours after that, I was ready to leave, but I hadn't taken my car, so I really couldn't. And then we had lunch and ended up staying until five. At five I was really ready to go home, and was relieved that we were leaving. Only we all weren't leaving, just the baby and his mom. My companion (and ride home) still had a few more things to get. I didn't get home til almost eight.

The day after that, some of us had dinner at the pilot's house. I've been to the pilot's house a couple of times before, and the last time I caught a cold or something. So when I started sneezing and such this time, they've decided that I'm allergic to their cat. They have a really big friendly cat. I love the cat. But I don't see how I could be allergic to their cat if I'm not allergic to my brother's cat and I've never noticed a problem with anyone else's cat. I've lived with cats for years, and there was never any problem. But, Saturday night I had the sniffles and such really bad, but it mostly went away by Sunday, so maybe they are right.

Sunday afternoon we left for the boring place, which I've already blogged about. So that just leaves the knitting and all that I'm trying to get caught up with before the party next Saturday.

Yesterday there is a dinner that I was invited to, but I didn't go. Someone else in the group apologized for not going either, because she had this party to go to. I know other people going to this same party, so I made some comment about that. Not cause I really wanted to go to this party, but just because it's been weeks or maybe months since I've made a smart-a** remark about anything on the list. Sometimes smart-a** remarks just don't translate on the computer, so now there are people sort of explaining why I didn't get an invite. I know perfectly well why I didn't get an invite, and I also knew who to go to if I had wanted one. I just didn't. I haven't the time or money to do the stuff I've already committed to, so adding another party to that is out of the question.

So I'm now debating should I just leave it alone or make another smart-a** remark?

Yesterday we got caught up with Stargate and Sanctuary, and we watched The Day The Earth Stood Still. Contrary to a local reviewer, this was not the worst sci-fi film ever made. It just isn't going to be everyone's favorite movie. And I think that it would have been more fun for me if I hadn't seen a lot more previews of it about a week ago. There were not a lot of surprises in the film after that.

Back to knitting and the rest of my life.

Why did I wait so long?

I have tons of knitting to do. Due mostly to poor planning on my part, I have not been sitting around enjoying the season after having already done all of my Christmas shopping and such before Thanksgiving. No. For some reason I put a lot of it off, like the fact that I didn't know if my family was going to draw names or what. We have decided on the Chinese gift exchange instead.

I don't know if I like the idea of the Chinese gift exchange. We do that at the club, and that is fun to watch. Everyone puts in something in the ten to twenty dollar range, and then everyone draws a number. Whoever got number one unwraps a gift. The person with the next number can either take that gift or unwrap another gift. People with higher numbers can steal any gift that they want from people with lower numbers, who then go and unwrap another gift. If you are the last person, you can either unwrap the last gift or steal anything from anyone else.

So that's a fun thing to watch, if it's a large group. And I've only spent ten dollars or so on what I put into it, usually Bath & Body Works stuff that was on sale, or maybe a book I found on sale and a gift certificate to buy another book. I figure that if my gift doesn't go to someone who likes that sort of thing, it's no big deal, they can easily re-gift it.

But I'm not so sure that I like the idea in the smaller group. I'm not sure that I like the idea that no one is buying anything especially for me, and the stuff that I'm buying isn't especially for a particular person either. And it's more than ten dollars. I had heard that it was going to be forty dollars, and when I heard it was the Chinese gift exchange I asked if we could drop that down to thirty dollars. And the way that things are now, no one really had a problem lowering the amount.

I'm still having a bit of a problem with it. Last year and the year before, (when we didn't have this idea of drawing names or having the Chinese gift exchange) I wasn't sure what to get people, except one person really seemed to like Bath & Body Works stuff, and a couple of other people seemed to like it too, though maybe not quite as much as the first. So I bought a lot of that stuff throughout the year when it was on sale, so by the time Christmas came I had lots of it to make gift baskets with. There's only one person who just really doesn't care for that stuff at all. So I bought some more of this stuff this year, just not as much as last year, hoping that I would draw the name of the person who really likes the stuff, or maybe one of the others.

But now we didn't draw names, and I don't have a lot of money to go out and buy something else. I have to put in two gifts, one for myself and one for my husband. So I figure one will still be the Bath & Body Works stuff, and the other will be a scarf that I've been working on. I have no idea if anyone will like the scarf other than my husband. So I've hid the scarf from him and hope that he's the one who ends up with it. I don't know, the others might really like it if they saw it. Anyway, if the one person ends up with Bath & Body Works stuff, great, and if her husband ends up with it he will just give most of it to her. Another person might want it, or I might end up taking it home with us. So that only leaves the one person who would really not like getting Bath & Body Works stuff, and I thought that I'd put some books and DVDs in the car and maybe offer to trade something.

Anyway, the scarf is mostly finished, but it still needs some more work. It has to be finished before Christmas Eve, and I'm trying to work in it when my husband won't see it. The other knitting has to be finished sooner, in only a week. One piece is done except for the fringe, and another piece is almost half done.

I really should have done this stuff sooner.

And then I have one major present to buy, which I still don't have a clue about, and three minor ones that aren't really a problem. Mostly more Chinese gift exchange stuff, but that's all in the five to ten dollar range and is stuff like Bath & Body Works stuff, candles, candy, etc....