All the things that i have done

There are so many events today and so it might just be easier to make a list.

1. Since we get the house on Wednesday, my sister and i packed up a shitload of stuff. i am hoping that we are all situated by v-day but we will see.
2. THANKFULLY, we did not get the big nasty snow storm. it was too warm. we did get a little sleet that didn't really do anything.
3. Read the 4th Sisterhood of the traveling pants book. sooo good.
4.Made two funfetti cakes and one yellow cake in my easy bake oven and all three turned out really good.
5. finished winding the yarn for red scarf two.
6. mailed off a ton of stuff at the post office
7. watched a documentary segment on the discovery channel about the manufacturing of sanitary napkins. which was actually really interesting.
8. i don't like driving on slush, i prefer hard surfaces, so i really didn't go anywhere. plus we have house stuff to set up, so it was a good thing.
9. today is Baby L's first birthday. time flies by so fast.
10. i was naughty and bought three magazines at hastings friday night in preparation for the storm that didn't happen. lol.

things i need to do:
1. pack pack pack pack
2. make a list of house stuff that we will need to eventually procure
3. burn mixed cd
4. become friends with accounting textbooks. yuck
5. finish red scarf 2 so that i can start something new
6. watch how to eat fried worms.

Sunshine, i hope things are going better. i hope that you don't have any more yucky storms so that you don't have to worry about power outtages and falling trees. hopefully the weather will behave for the next month and we can see each other, cause I miss you!! i need you to help me pick out house stuff.

WE HAVE A HOUSE!!!!

In a total case of pure serendipity, my little sis found us a house to rent with a big back yard, a fence a one car garage, a black and white kitchen, bUILT iN BOOKCASES, a bathroom and some other stuff that is exciting for only $525!!! YAY!!! It's a brick house from the 50s but the owners maintain it and are really nice. We sign papers next Wednesday. Hopefully we won't get snow tomorrow so the ice crap can continue to melt off. it's on a cul-de-sac in a decent area. no psycho neighbors. my mom approves, so by god this place must be pretty special, because she is one of the pickiest people on earth.

Today was a long day at work. i did get a lot of things done, so that was nice. it is behind me now. i should be really pissed off but i've decided not to let it get to me because there are worse things in life.

i stocked up on pop. i have yarn, a spankin new easy bake oven and pop! i am disaster-prepared! tonight i shall dream of hello kitty curtains--my new bedroom is going to be phat! there will be pink and hello kitty and whatever the hell else i want in there. my red kitchen aid utensils are going to look beautiful in the kitchen. the third office/bedroom is covered with built in bookcases. totally drooling. i think this is going to be nice. the bathroom is in good condition. the carpet is newer--like a light beige/taupe and there are wood floors, so no disco shag.

anyways, i'm tired. but i will have more stuff to yak about this week. red scarf three is finished so i am winding the final skein so that i can finish red scarf number 2.

All Work and No School

I have made it into work every day this week which is nice because i need to continue to make money with the upcoming move and all. So far my tuesday and wednesday night classes have been cancelled. Most of my classmates and teachers don't necessarily live near by and a lot of them live in towns with no power due to our ice storm. I can't top the adventures that Sunshine has had during this storm. I will say this, I am busting out after work tomorrow. I need mountain dew and some other things.

Thursday, if the conditions improve, my sister is has appointments to look at a couple of rental houses for us in town. I gave her a list of things "for her consideration" since I can't be there in person to voice my opinion. My dad's promotion/transfer hasn't been announced at work yet, which is nice because i don't have people hounding me and asking me dumb questions all day. Did I mention that it was 71 degrees in Charlotte, NC when my dad talked to his new bosses down there? I don't mind cold weather but I get cranky when I can't shop.

My skein of Cascade 220 persimmion arrived in the mail today so I will be able to Red Scarf #2 this weekend. I am starting to become concerned that I will not have enough to finish Red Scarf #3. This is why I shouldn't be conservative in my yarn expenditures. I am still debating on what I will crochet for Little S' wedding present. I can't decide if I'm disciplined enough to make an afghan, and if I finished it, I would not want to give away my first one. So I am still looking at patterns.

Boston Legal was awesome tonight too. James Spader cracks me up still. Denny Crane.

Boxes Boxes Everywhere

You know when you get to the point in a major purge/house cleaning where the donation and trash bag piles are so big you don't have room to really sort any more? Well, we are nearing that point rapidly. Due to the lovely ice storm I couldn't go to the post office or Goodwill to send off some of this stuff. I just got my car back from the damage that crazy lady did, I really don't want another insurance claim. My sister and i don't really have that much stuff, just too much for our tiny rooms. A lot of it is dishes and household stuff from dorm life in college that we wanted to keep for this very time. We are getting a set of dishes and matching mixing bowls from my mom. We honestly really wanted her set with the avocado daisy-like flowers on it. They are retro cool. Most of my trinkets and picture frames are boxed up now. I kept some stuff on the walls because I HATE NAKED WALLS....My sister and i also went through my sock drawer and matched up all of my socks. I didn't have any orphan socks either!

I am sneezing like crazy too. I had to dust stuff as I was packing it up. We ran out of bubble wrap so all those t-shirts I saved for sentimental purposes are great for wrapping up picture frames and other breakables.

I have started Red Scarf #3 but progress is slow because I have been cleaning like a mad woman. Thank god we taped Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy. I need something to entertain me while I am sorting.

Packed Ice

Well, my area got close to two inches of ice pellets. I went out to the mailbox and the grass was frozen so hard you could walk on top of it. Any concrete is solid snow packed ice. It all stopped some time last night but until we make it above 30 degrees it will be a hockey rink outisde.

This weather makes it perfect for packing. Gee Shoegirl, why do you have to pack? Well, my dad accepted a promotion/transfer to Charlotte, North Carolina. He starts February 1st and will be flying back and forth the next couple of months. My parents have to hear back from the relocation specialist first, but it looks like april and may will be house selling time. My sis and I have jobs here and i'm so close to finishing school that we are going to get a cute little rental house here. My sister's friend S is going to be our realtor because she has mega knowledge of the decent rental houses in town. S's husband is an assistant manager at a local liquor store in town so he is going to set aside boxes from their shipment on Tuesday for us. Liqour boxes are small and sturdy and are awesome for moving your shit with out breaking your back. Our goal is to be moved out by March so that we can be settled in and it will make it easier to show the house and clean carpets and stuff. It was our idea, our parents aren't kicking us out or anything like that.

My mom, my sister and I went through all the movies and split them apart. Holy cow! I could operate my own video store. We have at least two plastic tubs full to donate to the library sales and three huge bags of books too. We don't believe in garage sales, we think that they are tortuous to put on. At some point I need to empty out my dresser so that mom and i can glue the drawers back together, some of them have really loose joints (it was my mom's first dresser when she moved out of her parent's house in the 70s).

Let's just say I could use a week long stay at a knitting spa. I have my Annie smile on though. Change is good.

Random Thoughts Tuesday

I forgot to mention that in the blur of it all, the "Gulf of Mexico" scarf was finished. It's made out of two of the other skeins of SWTC Karaoke that my little sis bought me for Christmas. I love soy/silk/wool blends. They are awesome. I went to my first class tonight of the semester. believe, there is nothing exciting about NFP/GOVT accounting. Yuck. But the professor is one of my favorites so I know he will do his best to make it entertaining. I stayed up very late last night to read Without You by Anthony Rapp. It was so good. He starred in a lot of my favorite movies growing up and hello, he played Mark in RENT. That's like cool points times infinity. anyways, his autobiography was awesome and parts of it moved me to tears. It has been awhile since I have read a decent autobiography. I will definitely be re-reading it over and over. I also starting reading the Al Gore book, An Inconvient Truth. Also very good from a environmental science-y standpoint. Al Gore makes environmental issues accessible and breaks them down in a way that the average person can understand. I have not started any new crochet projects yet because I am waiting for pay day so I can order yarn to finish red scarf #2 and I am trying to figure out what to make for the celebration discussed below.

I also received a save the date card from Little S. She is marrying J on May 26th. I am excited about this wedding because I think the two of them are good together and have an equal relationship. Since she is the one who taught me how to crochet, and founded "crochet sweatshop (this is meant in a positive light)" I think it would be fitting if I crocheted an afghan for them. M thinks that is crazy. If she devoted 1/4 of the time she spent on lousy sex to things like career, crochet or friends I think she would be a much happier person. I think this is possible because I have realized that if you just do a few rows everyday while watching tv, or while you are waiting on carpool, you can make a lot of progress. That's how I've been able to make so many hats and scarves recently. So I thought, hell if I can do that surely I could finish a nice afghan by May 26th. Anyways, i had no intentions of talking to M tonight, but she calls me after class and is all like how come you haven't called me. I was just like you have a phone too. Why should I have to use all my minutes on someone who doesn't even act interested half the time in conversation because she is either getting ready for one of her hook ups or watching tv while on the phone. If you don't really want to have a conversation, then don't call me.

Anyways, I didn't talk too long cause she was just making me annoyed and I was not about to miss one second of the new boston legal tonight. so I gave her a taste of her own medicine and told her that i had to go because boston legal was going to be on in five minutes. Seriously, people that show is one of the current highlights of my week. Plus, William Shatner was playing a trombone shaped kazoo! It had a moveable slide! How freaking cool is that!!!????

By the way, I am an awful musical afficiando. I forgot to wish Elvis a Happy Birthday yesterday. Happy Belated Birthday Elvis! You still rock!

Anyways, those are my rants and raves for the day. I am going to take some allegra-d so that i can peacefully sleep and be able to breathe out of my congested nose in the morning. I am also going to read some more since i have purchased several books over the holidays and reading more frequently is on my "Be the Change" list of resolutions.

Warm Fuzzies

Just after Christmas I had sent off two boxes of yarn, hooks, needles and knitting magazines and leaflets. I sent off my doubles, the ones I knew I wasn't going to make anything out of to this really awesome organization called Warm the World in Colorado. They have some really cool outreach programs and other organizations that they help and just reading about their accomplishments gave me a good feeling. So I stuffed two flat rate boxes full of goodies and I encluded some fairly recent knitting magazines because I know they aren't cheap and most people probably don't think to donate things like that or won't part with them. They were happy to receive them too. I see it as part of my "Be the Change" resolution for this year. Knitting and crochet make me extremely happy so if i can turn that into good works for others, that makes it even better.

Today at work was kind of yucky. The stress level around me is awful. I bet if someone took the blood pressure of everyone in the department we would all probably flunk except for the payroll clerk and myself, because we are young and fun and sometimes we just shut the door and laugh until we are about to cry.

On the upside when I finally came home from work, there was the nice e-mail from Warm the World. I was very relieved that my boxes made it to them and weren't buried in a snow pile. I received a Christmas present from my aunt E. She sent me a diamond heart necklace, a really awesome three strand heart necklace from AMERICAN EAGLE and a $50 giftcard to Wal-Mart. I can afford a tiny bit of caffeine now!!!! Yay. The books I ordered from BN came as well. I must say the pictures and stories in the Al Gore book are just breaktaking (this also follows my theme too) and I will probably stay up very late reading parts of his book and the autobiography of Anthony Rapp (one of the stars of RENT!!!). A-dolly's Easy Bake Oven Gourmet Cookbook also arrived and their is a bourbon chocolate birthday cake recipe in it. Oops! Lol...When I agreed to be her fairy godmother, I never promised to teach her about morals.

Night night...

Food

So I got up early this morning and met J in Owasso for a little Starbucks and Tar-jay. Tar-jay had one Kitchen Aid spatula left, which was good because they didn't have any at Linens n' things but i did get a new cookie sheet. My sister got pampered chef ones at a teacher party but they are stone and there's all these rules about cleaning them. I had a 20 % coupon so I got your basic wilton cookie sheet. I got the cutest wash cloth at Tar-jay that is pink and has rows of different colored hearts. It's adorable!!! I also found a copy of Gregory Maguire's Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister on clearance for THREE DOLLARS!!! I about died! It is one of my favorites and usually it is $12-15 in paperback. I think it was returned because there was some mark on it but it wasn't missing pages so I was like hell yeah! Very good deals. Then I went home and I ended up going to Garfield's to have lunch with S. He always complains because we never hang out but he says that he wants to and usually flakes out on me. Lol. Why do all of my flaky friends live in town and my good ones all live out of state?

I can't believe that I actually start classes again on Tuesday. Wow. I told my sister she has to give me back my calculator for class. She has one, it's just buried somewhere in her room.

I got a phone call from Aunt D this afternoon. A-dolly received the little Easy Bake Oven cookbook that I had put together for her. Apparently she made Aunt D read all the recipes to her out loud last night and she carries it with her eveywhere. She has already tried out two of the recipes. I couldn't believe how many recipes were out there on the internet, and they use common incredients and small amounts, Much more afforable then the $5-6 mixes that they sell in the store. I might suck at cooking but I am good with computers and I can make pretty things. It's my way of being in her life since we live in two different states. Hopefully I will get to visit them in March maybe over Spring Break. I miss A-dolly. She is just little Miss Sunshine. DISCLAIMER: All this gushing still does not make me want to have my own. I am happy just to be fairy godmother to A-dolly and L.

At Last!!!!

I GOT MY CAR BACK!!!!!! HAPPY DANCE HAPPY DANCE HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell I'm excited? We got the call at work today so we left a little early. It is shiny and better than new. They put this shiny stuff called wax on it and my Subaru freaking sparkles now. I don't think my car has seen wax since 2003. The body shop did a fantastic job....Two thumbs way up to them.

I paid the big nasty tuition bill today. I survived the baby shower. It was basically a foodfest and watch her open up presents so that was good.

Seriously guys you can't smack the grin off my face. I didn't realize how emotionally attached I was to her until she had to go to the shop. Huge relief. I don't have to borrow cars or beg for rides. Reunited just in time for school to start next week too. YAY!!

Last night's Ugly Betty was pretty good. I can totally relate to Betty on many levels. A new purse always makes me feel beautiful. I also received the new Lion Brand Yarn Catalog in the mail today. I was seriously impressed. They have some really cool crochet afghan patterns that I could actually make (and want to).

YAY!!!!

Edit: I just finished the Rainbow scarf. How awesome is that! I think I am going to make another one with the other two skeins of SWTC Karaoke that my sister gave me for xmas with the other addi hook that i bought that has gold glitter inside of it. Can we say sparkle hook? I am very proud of myself for crocheting from my stash and i didn't even have to join a group to motivate me.

Make that a Double Expresso, please.

This was a two doubleshot Expresso day. We had to start the process of closing the December books the day we came back from over a week of Christmas vacation. My stuff was going fine but because two of my co-workers were up shit creek and couldn't row themselves out, I had to bail them out at my boss' request on top of my jam-packed day. See all my deadines are on the first day of closing the books and then i am done except for doing my reports. What really hacked me off is that these two co-workers snuck off for a 1 1/2 hour lunch in the midst of it all. It's okay to take a long lunch every once in awhile, but don't do it during closing week when you can't meet your deadlines. Lazy bitches piss me off! I made sure to inform my boss that I met all my deadlines today. I am also very glad that there are only two more days left in the week. .

Okay, so I am calming down. I am done venting. I am listening to Three Little Birds by Bob Marley, and if that song doesn't give you some calm vibes than I don't know what does. My snoopy checks arrived in the mail today just in time to pay tuition on Friday. Lol...the irony of that.

I started a skinny Rainbow scarf last night. My sister bought me 4 skeins of Karaoke by SWTC in two different colorways. This yarn is 50% soy silk and 50 % wool and it feels heavenly. The two skeins that I am using for this scarf are color #298 which translates to dark rainbow colors, there is some deep navy blue and indigo purple that makes it look more manly than some of the other Rainbow scarves I have crocheted. I am using my new favorite Addi hook for this one too.

Sunshine, I totally feel your car pain. Cars suck right now. I'm so glad that you received your surprise (perfect timing too!). Spoiling you is fun and it makes me happy. Plus, we needed the turner so we could have more cooking adventures.

Boring Day

Well work on Red Scarf #2 has come to a standstill. Lol. I underestimated how much yarn and I would need and the additional skein hasn't arrived yet. So, I was going to make something with my hank of Lisa Souza yarn. I don't have a ball winder or a handy yarn swift, and in my true nature, I was on the home stretch of winding it into a ball and turned it into a bit of a mess at the end. It is possible to fix, however, I have decided to wait to finish fixing it. My sister went back to work and my dad disappeared for the day ( i assure you this is completely normal so my mom and I were stuck at the house all day. I made a lot of progress working on #2 while watching former President Ford's funeral.

I am sort of happy I am going back to work tomorrow but I am not excited about closing December's books when I get there. It is probably the most stressful closing week out of the year and I am sure I will have a bunch of e-mails with stupid people questions when i return. However, I would like to make some money, so I will gladly show up. Because today was a government day of morning, I also couldn't go in and make my tuition payment either so I will have to go in late to work on Friday and pay it.

I don't know, this was just a boring day. I did watch some episodes of Boston Legal today. My sister brought home her labelmaker tonight so I was able to label my notebooks for my classes this semester in the hopes of bringing the right one to class. Lol. Each class is on a different night, T, W, and R, so it will be another semester of taping shows.

Flat on My Face

So it is Day one of 2007. I overslept until 9am and almost missed the Rose Bowl Parade pre-parade show. Then my mom fell asleep and overcooked the roast beef (which I didn't know she was even making cause i was asleep too). So she sent my sister and I out to the grocery store to get some beef gravy to compensate for the dryness. Well, we didn't make it out of the garage without catastrophe. It was all my fault. I am a complete moron. In my defense, I virtually only drive my beloved Subaru Forrester. Apparently, when I drove my sister's honda civic to pick up the pizza last night, i forgot to turn off the lights. The forrester's lights automatically turn off when you turn the car off because it has daytime running lights. IF i regularly drove the civic I would remember to turn the lights off. Anyways, we had to tell my dad because we had no idea how to jump a car, or whether the jumper cables would be in the garage. Alpha male (dad) + alpha female (me) = bad because he just would not shut up about the fact that I ACCIDENTLY left the lights on. He's done way more dumb things to our vehicles. Anyways, we jumped the civic, it's recharged and i will always know how to jump a battery for as long as i shall live. I MISS MY CAR!!!!!!!

The Rose Bowl Parade was awesome. There was sunny weather, storm troopers, Oklahoma Centennial floats, Kristen Chenoweth, Imperial Fighters and freaking 6 foot tall roses. On the Oklahoma Rising float, a real-live Rocket Man flew out of the birthday cake on the float. He was airborne for like 30 seconds and it was freaking awesome!!!! Of course there was some damn good marching bands, cause that's why I really watch the parade. My mom and I even watched the Rose Bowl game this evening. USC beat Michigan (i'm an iowa fan so i refuse to root for Michigan because they are a big rival, but i don't like USC at all either). We just watched the 2nd half which is when most of the action happened anyways. I was working on Red Scarf #2 while watching, cause we all know that I can't sit still. It is 16 inches long and the average adult scarf is 60 inches. I'm getting there. It would go faster but I am a bit of a perfectionist, i have to count the stitches in each row twice after I finish a row so that i know for sure that each row has an even 23 stitches. It's my ocd/accounting side. I am loving how easy it is to crochet with Cascade 220. It lends itself very well to the hook.The shade of red I am using is the color of Mister Rogers' cardigan. Lol. Don't you love my technical terms?

I was semi-naughty and ordered two Easy Bake Oven cookbooks for A-dolly online this morning. See, my A-dolly loves her new Easy Bake Oven, and cooking is a very useful educational tool for children because you can teach math, science and social skills in the process. Since I am her official fairy godmother, I am responsible for her education, especially her arts education and she is the heir to my throne after all. So I found two of them online and ordered them for her. I also found some free recipes by doing a google search (i loooove google) and put them into a little booklet for her. It's sad, A-dolly has more cooking skills than I do. LOL...Maybe I should have added that to my resolutions.

In my defense, i used the remainder of my gift card and since my debit card is a mastercard I got to use the $10 off promotion from Barnes and Noble. So basically, my order was 50% off. YAY for me! This order also included Anthony Rapp's new autobiography about RENT and other life experiences and since I'm a bleeding heart liberal, I ordered Al Gore's latest book about the environment called An Inconvient Truth. I've read excerpts and it sounds very interesting. I just like to read about everything. I like science, just not as a profession. I leave that part to my sister the physical science teacher.

By the way Sunshine, after I got off the phone with you, M called. She's started off the new year with a bang, to say the least. Rolls her eyes big time. I felt like Emily Dickinson after I got off the phone with her. Boo to her, props to you for starting a blog, I think that's awesome.

Based on my experiences today, I have decided that my official theme for 2007 will be Alanis Morrisette's cover of Crazy, which was originally made famous by Seal. I originally heard this version when I was hanging out with Sunshine before break and then I was watching The Devil Wears Prada yesterday and this version is on the soundtrack. I like both versions of the song, but Alanis' version brings a certain element of girl power to it.

New Year's Eve Organization

Yup. I'm an organizing bandit. I created new file folders for all my "important papers" and it's all happily filed in one box instead of in multiple places. I have outgrown the shoe box method. It works for temporary saving but not for long-term purposes. Plus, how I am I ever going to convince Sunshine that filing and organization are great, unless I lead by example? Plus, there is a high possibility that my father might get transfered, so I could be moving later on this year.

I made another Dulaan hat today. I am now working on a baby camo hat for Hunter, Y's new baby. Y is a family friend that lives in Wisconsin and she had a baby boy named Hunter in August. It was one of those Christmas card surprises and mom talked to Y's mom who happens to be her best friend so we are making a box of baby things to send to her and since he's named Hunter, I decided to make a baby camo hat because Wisconsin is cold as hell and they actually get snow up there where they live.

E invited me to a last minute party that her and her husband decided to throw, but I politely declined saying that I had a previous engagement. My sinuses are still recovering from hanging out at her place Friday note not to mention that I come home smelling like a bowling alley and I have to take a shower to get all the smoke nasty out of my wild mane of hair. And they live in the ghetto part of town and I don't think that's going to be a very safe place to be on New Year's Eve. I have just grown out of those types of parties.

I heart Crochet

So I have mostly been working on crocheting Red Scarf #2 today with my new Addi hook. It is the perfect hook. Seriously, I have tried many different brands and types and this one is my favorite by far. Of course, it's the most expensive, but since I don't follow patterns it doesn't really matter what size hook to use. I am using Cascade 220 for scarf #2, it's not the fanciest wool yarn in the world, but it is good quality and I like the feel of it. I also made two more Dulaan hats today. This makes a total of 15 hats that are in my Dulaan box now. Lol...i can't help being organized. i'm a recovering Type A.

I watched this awesome documentary on Showtime this morning called Life After Tomorrow which is about the child actresses that played Annie and the orphans in the Broadway musical Annie. It was really neat because it showed the effect the show had on them and what they were doing now. I remember my parents taking us to see Annie at the Des Moines Civic Center when we were in elementary school. I can sing the whole score to Annie, and I'm not the type to memorize music like that. Sometimes when I am having a crappy day I dig out my old VHS copy of Annie the movie with Bernadette Peters and it cheers me up. I secretly love Broadway muscials. I am hell bent on seeing Wicked this summer when it comes to OKC.

Not much is really going on. I have had so much free time that I even painted my toe nails! Holy shit Batman! I'm also having very strange cravings for Dr. Pepper.

2007 Goals - Be The Change

It is very late in Melissaland and I just got home from spending the evening at E's new place. I went over there because I had called her to thank her for the Christmas card and she sounded like she needed some girl talk. So we hung out and chatted over some queso dip while her husband sat in the back room smoking and playing Warcraft..... Anyhoo, since my sinuses are all clogged and after hearing all her drama, I thought I should sit down and write my goals for 2007.

1. Finish my accounting degree.
2. Travel travel travel..This includes my week off in May and possibly taking a weekend off in August to see DCI in Pasadena( or at least one DCI show this summer...sweaty muscles and shiny instruments baby!!).
3. Learn more advanced knitting and crochet techniques and along with that, make more hats and scarves for my favorite charities.
4. read more books regularly. In college, I used to read every night before i went to bed and I have been slacking on that lately.
5. Cut back on pop and junk food. Become one with nasty diet pop and trick myself into thinking that sugar tastes like shit.
6. Normally, by now I would have some goal about dating or such, but I say to hell with that shit. Que sera, sera.
7. Quit buying stupid crap and save more money. I have been doing better at this but I know I can do even better than I have been. I need to start at least keeping track of what i spend so I can make a realistic budget and forecast my expenditures/financial disasters. I will start this on Jan 1, to be on the easy side.

I think 7 is plenty. I like manageable goals. I am going to log off now and crochet some more on red scarf #2 that I started tonight before I went to E's house. I am using Cascade 220 and my new Addi Hook. ADDI HOOKS ROCK!!!!!!! They are the best things ever and I will be ordering more of these in the future.

Day Four Already?

So Day Three kind of just flew away. My sister and I had received these gift cards to Barnes and Noble for Christmas, and we needed something to do so we drove down to Tulsa. I still have money on mine!!! Isn't that a hoot! First time in the history of Melissa! I bought a Frank Lloyd Wright mini wall calendar, a really awesome Skyscrapers coffee table type book that has awesome pictures and the history behind these cool buildings, two magazines, two cute little notepads, a copy of A Christmas Story (60 % off baby!!!), two copies of the mini Mister Rogers book. Then we ate at Back Yard Burgers. We have a favorite one in Tulsa and the manager knows us by name and always remembers what we order and who orders what. Awesome service there!

Then I made my sister go to Utica Square because there is this really awesome yarn store there called Loops and they were having this totally awesome after Christmas sale. I bought a skein of Lamb's Pride Worsted in Blue Blood Red, one skein of red Cascade 220, two samples of Soak (wool wash), and this Rowan leaflet with Kim Hargreaves that was marked down to 3.99!!!! I was being seriously conservative because of vacation and the big tuition bill coming up. Plus, I didn't "need" any yarn because of the infamous 19 skeins I received for Christmas, but this is like a once a year sale, so I wanted to at least see if they even had any yarn left, which they did.

We left Tulsa after that and went home so we could see the 4:40 showing of Holiday. That movie was awesome, and Jack Black didn't annoy me, which was great and Kate Winslet was awesome. We got home from the movie about the same time that my dad got home from work with my accident report. Boy that was hilarious. It actually is written on the police report where she admitted to being "lost" and talking on the cell phone. Call me naive, but I don't know how you could be driving a brand new 2007 Chevy 1500 pick-up and not be able to provide proof of insurance. I could understand not having a copy but she didn't even have a name of a company or her old policy or anything, so I think that was a total crock of shit but that's okay because she got two tickets and my insurance company is going to go after her skanky ass.

What lies ahead for Day 4? Well, it's pay day so I am going to the post office. I am working on hat eight right now. i have a ton of new books to read and some yarn catalogs to drool over that came in the mail today. There will be some more Boston Legal involved and I am waiting for two packages to arrive today.

Finally, the question you really want the answer for, What's on my ipod?

1. I wanna Dance with somebody - Whitney Houston
2. One Wing in the Fire - Trent Tomlinson
3. And I am Telling You I'm Not Going - Jennifer Hudson (the dance mix from the Dreamgirls soundtrack)
4. Santa Monica - Theory of a Deadman
5. Gonna Fly Now - Bill Conti

Day Two

I am calling this Day Two because it is the second day of my vacation. The weekend doesn't count because I always have that off. So yesterday was Christmas and my sister and I went to see The Pursuit of Happyness. I finally figured out why it is spelled wrong. The movie was awesome, so now I want to buy the book and find out more, because I am a sucker for a good true-life story. I have made it through Disc Three of Boston Legal Season 1. I am surprised that I have not cracked a rib laughing. I wish I could show up to morning staff meetings with a light up star on my head. It might make them bearable....

I did buy the matching tote purse at American Eagle to go with the party purse and the wallet, all in gun metal gray. Did I mention that they match one of my favorite pairs of Converses? that was all that I bought because there wasn't any really mouth dropping stuff on sale and that purse was the only thing that I have really been toying with purchasing recently.

I made the dreaded visit to the bank to order some overpriced checks. Had I know my routing number or my account number I might have ordered them online for one third of the price, but I think in a cleaning frenzy, I accidently shreaded that piece of paper with that information. See my original bank merged with another bank, but I could keep using my old checks cause they were connected, but the box of checks that I got when I opened the account my second year in college finally ran out. there are two things that I have to pay cash or check for, no debit card allowed, so I am therefore forced to order another stinking box of checks that I will not finish because most likely I will be moving by the end of this year. When I do so, I am getting a new bank, one that doesn't charge fees for using your debit card, doesn't charge you out the ass for checks and is open either past five o clock or at least a little bit on Saturdays because some us have to work long hours and don't fit into banker's hours. The only positive thing about this whole dreaded experience was that i got some cute Snoopy checks. Trust me, they were the best choice out of my limited options. Who really wants Mr. Potato Head on their checks?

On a happier note, I did go to see Rocky Balboa today and it was stinking awesome. It had the magic of the original Rocky and if you can't help but feel motivated when you walk out of the theater afterwards. Milo was awesome as Rocky's son and I loved the pea coat that he was wearing.

I am currently working on making my fifth hat since Christmas Eve. I am not power knitting because I am on "vacation" and this is supposed to be fun and not the cause of hand cramps. I'm thinking that I should make a funky scrap afghan with the leftovers from making hats out of my 19 skeins of yarn, but we will see. Afghans aren't the most portable project in the world and couch space is limited in my house.

I am hoping that I will get a call from the body shop saying that my parts are in because I would really like to get my car fixed before any more tiny plastic parts fall off. We will see what happens.

Christmas Eve Delight

So in recent years we have started a newer tradition of opening our presents on Christmas Eve. I am still in shock because I opened up this giant bag and inside of it was 19 SKEINS OF YARN!!!!!!!! It's a good thing that I didn't sign up for one of those stash busting programs. It's all in the colors I like too. So between all this yarn and the all the dvds I got for Christmas I might actually turn into a hermit over the rest of my vacation. We'll see. I don't like to be cooped inside all day.

Well I have made two hats this evening. I'm really glad that I did that since I have a lot of yarn to make projects with. The funny thing is that I ordered a skein of Rowan Summer Tweed Vanity the other day with some Addi hooks because I didn't think Santa was going to buy me any yarn for Christmas. See people, if you believe in Santa, even at age 26, he will listen to you and bring you cool stuff like yarn and a Hello Kitty stapler. Lol...I also got a Barnes and Noble gift card and a Hello Kitty toaster, more Hallmark ornaments and some other cool stuff little things. My little sis also bought me 4 new Eskimo Joe's cups. Hello, they put out new colors every year.

Seriously though, everybody wins with the yarn though because now I can make lots more hats for Dulaan and other things for my charity causes. I think the best part of this evening was watching my little doggies sleep under the tree after we had opened all the presents.

So what do we do on Christmas? Well, we go to morning mass and then we go to the movies. I'm sure I will also be knitting or crocheting something since I have no idea where in the heck I am going to put all my lovely yarn.

I must go now and watch my Boston Legal dvds way into the wee hours of the night.

Yarn Holiday!

Well, I am now officially on holiday and I don't even have to think about accounting at all until January 3rd. YAY!!!! I love accounting, but my brain needs a break.

I watched Rocky tonight while i was working on the red scarf and so now the Rocky theme is totally stuck in my head. Maybe it's supposed to motivate me. It must have because I did like 3 loads of laundry and sorted through some stuff in my room. I measured the red scarf and I have about 30 inches done so far and most scarves for adults are usually in the 60 range.

My little sister has gone cookie crazy. She bought real cookie sheets at a Pampered Chef party hosted by one of her fellow teachers and I think she made like 4 batches of cookies tonight. Homemade. Talk about craziness. Sometimes I wonder how we are even related.

Other movie purchases of note include some vintage Patrick Dempsey in Can't Buy Me Love and She-Ra on DVD (5 fan favorite episodes plus the feature length movie). Courtesy of my mother, I also have two grown-up table lamps. They are totally girly!!! They have dangly beads but in a subtle non-tacky way. The shades are a grey-beige with a silver base. They look way cooler than what I can describe. I just plugged one in and it's really cool. She thought I needed lamps because of all the needlework and computer/school stuff that I do. Subtle hint, eh? My favorite part is that they match and they will look really cool in a future living room.

Anyways, for the rest of the night since I can stay up as late as I wanna, I plan on reading/drooling over my new knitting and crochet books as well as my Andy Warhol books.

I hope everyone has a very happy and fruitcake free holiday weekend! Remember: If the relatives are driving you crazy, go hug a skein of yarn. It will make you feel better.

Shaked not Stirred

Well, Monday night on my way home from work a crazy lady in a big truck ran a stop sign and ran right into my car as I was driving my dad and I home from work. We are fine, not a scratch but my Subaru has $2500 worth of damage. We can't get it in until after the holidays because of parts and the holidays themselves. It will take a week in the shop but it is in driveable condition now. She hit the front left fender (the thingie over the wheel, cracked my headlights etc. The body shop dude had to pull my fender out of the door hinge so that I could open my car more than a foot. This was my first wreck so it has been a frustrating week. The lady was cited with failure to yield and she didn't have proof of insurance. the accident report isn't in yet either. At least I still have my good looks and my mighty Subaru will rise again like a phoenix from the ashes.

Tuesday night I finished my Veteran's scarf. I will send it off over break. I plan on starting the Red Scarf sometime tonight. I also want to make a scarf from the skein of Liza Souza's Violet's Pink Ribbon that arrived on Tuesday. I also need to make K's doink hat too. i also want to crochet a technicolor log cabin afghan. Lots of goals for 2007.

One bright spot is that grades came in the mail today and I totally passed my classes! It sounds silly but I always have this fear of failing classes somehow even though I know I totally aced them.

Scarves

So while I was at Sunshine's I made some massive progress on yarn projects. I made the scarf for A-dolly that matches the winter coat my mom made for this year. I am over half-way done crocheting the scarf for the Knit Your Bit campaign sponsored by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. The address for the project is here: http://www.nationalww2museum.org/education/knitting.html

My next project is making a doink hat for K, the father of A-dolly. He named and designed the hat, I am just the person manufacturing it. When the doink hat is finished I will most certainly post it on my Flickr page. As soon as I finish the vet's scarf, i am casting on for the Red Scarf Project. This project is sooo awesome and it is near and dear to my heart because I am back in college again and this project sends encouragement and care packages to orphans/foster kids who have aged out of the system and are now going to college. Ironically, while I was at Sunshine's my mom bought me the perfect red yarn for the project, not even knowing I was planning on it. She just thought I would like the color. It is Autumn Red (Caron Simply Soft) and it is machine-washable which = college-student friendly and it is really soft. Info about The Red Scarf Project can be found here: http://www.interweave.com/knit/events/redscarf.asp

Anyways, this weekend went by way too fast. I had so much fun and I am so relaxed. Sunshine is like the best host ever (Thanks again for everything!!!). Sniff sniff, I wish we lived a tad bit closer together, but at least my mighty Subaru gets fantastic gas mileage. There is also a major aura of productivity at his house. I always finish tons of UFOs and I get tedious homework done faster there for some reason.

I am like seriously tired. I think my inability to sit still has finally caught up with me. So i am going to dive under my bazillion denim quilts on my bed and dream about piles of yarn. LOL!!!

O Hanukkah Tree

It's not really a Hanukkah tree, but I did find the perfect tree and we did put it up last night and it's the first weekend of Hanukkah. It's a 4ft prelit Indiana spruce, totally faux, but it is quite possibly the cutest little Christmas tree ever. I am dragging Sunshine out to Target today because he HAS NO CAFFEINE and we still need a tree topper and a little tree skirt to finish it off. The best part is that the cat is not trying to pounce the tree! I know this has to be a Christmas miracle.

Speaking of Christmas miracles, I got a big fat raise and vacation pay I didn't know I had. Unfortunately I have to be mostly responsible and stick a whole lot of it up my butt because I have a big scary tuition payment and some scary expensive accounting books to buy in January. I have only made one yarn purchase which was a skein of Miss Violet's Pink Ribbon made by Lisa Souza. It looks so beautiful and Liza Souza has the best customer service ever. I give her two hooks up for sure.

On the Christmas shopping front, I am pretty much down to stuff for Chinese gift exchanges at work and stocking stuffers. I bought my sister's final presents Thursday night after my cost accounting final.

If anyone has tricks to getting dried up super glue off your hands let me know. The cat doesn't really bother the tree but she thinks that the Christmas village is her personal toy box so when we magically found the superglue, I was able to repair the broken pile. Props to my mother for showing me the tricks to getting the super glue to bond before it gets too messy. I didn't glue my hands or fingers together so it was a successful project.

Sunshine also made some very fancy hot chocolate that looks like it walked out of the Martha Stewart Holiday issue. It tasted even better than Starbucks.

Happy Holidays!!!!!

Is it Christmas Vacation yet?

I know most people aren't fortunate enough to get a week off from work paid or unpaid, but i do get the week off between Christmas and New Year's due "factory shutdown." I am sooo ready for it too, because i will have a short break from school as well. I am just so tired. I haven't been to Wal-Mart in a full week and I have all these work parties and last minute Christmas shopping to do, but the only time I am motivated to do anything is on the weekends or after night class gets out, since I am already out and about.

I had an awesome weekend in Kansas City. There is just something awesome about walking around the Plaza and the Crown Center, and we went to the Crown Center at night and got some really awesome pics. I made a visit to the BN on the Plaza which is one of my favorites. I bought Crochet Today magazine (it has really cool patterns that don't require a lot of technical skills) and Jennifer Stafford's book Domiknitrix (really good technique pictures and a heart shaped pillow that says Bite Me--i need that one in my cube at work) and Warhol by Klaus Honnef because it was the most affordable Warhol book they had. I got to carry A-dolly around everywhere and read her stories and do puzzles. she is sooo freaking smart for a two year old. I was amazed just sitting there watching her put together 24 piece puzzles without any help at all..She is a chatterbox, and she has the crazy curls like i did when i was a little girl. My aunt D also hooked us up with new Iowa Hawkeyes shirts. She even got me a bright pink one! yay! a-dolly is going through a pink phase too, and on saturday we both were wearing pink shirts and she danced around saying "pretty in pink! pretty in pink!" I also have to give a shout out to my favorite hotel chain Hampton Inns. They have free and fast wireless internet and the world's most comfortable pillow-top mattresses and comforters. I knew they were upgrading their beds but this is better than I expected!

This weekend I get to play Martha Stewart at Sunshine's this weekend. I am decorating a Christmas tree for him since it his first house that really has good display space for a tree and I found cool ornaments that were on sale so this tree is going to rock!

Gracias!

I came home from work tonigh and there was a Post Office extravaganza waiting in my room. I received, not one, but TWO boxes from my Secret Pal 9. YAY!! Thank-you so much! She sent me three skeins of Red Heart in Plum berries, a pair of size 13 circulars, a friendship cookie mix, starbursts, skittles, a poncho leaflet, and a stuffed Christmas Teddy Bear. Yay! I love presents, especially when it involves yarn. I also received a really nice thank-you note from Major Knitter for the donation of yarn and supplies for the PTA Knit-A-Thon contest that she was involved with. She included a handmade set of Knit Notes and a post-it note pad that says Knit Happens on it. I was really surprised. I sent off some stash yarn and extra looms and needles, because the premise behind the contest was to teach the elementary school kids how to knit so that they could knit hats for Caps to the Capitol, which will distribute hats to babies through the organization Save the Children. I even made twenty hats to send off to Caps to the Capitol. Anyways, it was a very impressive effort and I am just glad that I was able to help out in my own little way.


Anyways, I am super tired from work. I was doing double-duty trying to catch up for my snow day on Friday, so I think I am just going to lay on my bed, rest my eyes and listen to the new Incubus cd and do that thing otherwise known as relaxing.

Cabin Fever

Well, since the blizzard started Thursday afternoon, I have made five hats and embroidered another pillowcase for A-dolly. I cleaned out some more crap in my closet and I have all my Christmas cards ready to send. I finished reading The Innocent Man by John Grisham. I did three loads of laundry. I had chit chatted with the customer service rep at US Cellular who took my phone payment---I am people deprived!! He was friendly too and was asking me about the snow that we got. I watched a really good Hallmark movie on the Hallmark Channel called The Christmas Card...I can't help it...I am a hopeless romantic to the core. I also tagged all my hats to send to Caps for the Capitol, but I don't have a box the right size. Tomorrow I am pitching a fit and going to walmart. If my father can run off with my Forrester and go to the grocery store, walmart and a movie, it is plenty safe for me to drive to walmart. Did I mention the lady across the street that routinely backs into her daughter's Jeep Liberty was out driving today without incident? I need some Mountain Dew!!! My dad actually had the cajones to bring me back Diet Mountain Dew. HE KNOWS I HATE DIET MOUNTAIN DEW!!!!!! It doesn't have the caffeine or the sugar and I would rather drink 100 year old eggnog. He acted annoyed when I told him right to his face that it TASTES LIKE SHIT...Can you tell I'm getting a little cranky? i just want some decent pop and a small change of scenery. I like to have the option of getting out of the house. I would have gone today but my dad took my car without asking and took a 5 hour long hour trip to get milk. I would have been okay with the taking of my car but to tell me that I can go anywhere and then go joyriding all over town using up my gas really hacks me off. Did I mention I have Daddy issues??

Honestly, though, I am having a good time. i just need to get out of the house for a few minutes, have some caffiene, buy a couple of magazines and then I will be all happy again. Online shopping is just not the same. it is great for hard to find items, but I miss the people interaction, good or bad. Plus, I hate waiting for packages in the mail. speaking of this, I did order a new purse online. LOL. I was soooo bored that I was looking at Delia's.com and Urban Outfitters online. They both had these Factory Girl Andy Warhol totes with the giant banana on them (like the velvet underground album cover). I wanted to get it from Urban Outfitters but the banana tote was on back order from them so I had to suck it up and order it from Delia's (home of the teenyboppers). Lol. I just totally ruined my rep by admitting to purchasing from Delia's but that's okay. I will repent by listening to the new Incubus album tonight. Snow makes people goofy.

Snowed In!

I had to e-mail in to work today. Those that can are working from home today. I don't have a company laptop, so I logged into my email log enough to email my boss and turn on my out of office reply. Lol...My section of Oklahoma got 10 + inches, my town officially had a blizzard, a power outage, and a reported 15 inches. I don't feel like shoveling a path to the yard stick I stuck out in the middle of my yard last night, but the view from my patio says you can only see the top two feet or so of the stick. I should've buried a ruler just for shits and giggles.

besides running around in the snow taking pictures this morning, I have been downloading some fresh songs from Itunes. I plan on busting out the dvd collection later on. I'm not sure I will be going to tulsa this weekend. Lol...I'm not one for digging cars out of the roads and such. I plan on making some hats today.

I heart SNOW!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoe_girl/

Check out my Flickr page to see all my first hand pictures of the snow fall. I have not seen snow like this in at least 6 years. Parts of our town lost power for over two hours and we have ten plus inches of snow on top on the pile of sleet we started off with this morning. I did go into work for about 5 hours today with my dad but we said to hell with it and came home before we got stuck at the plant overnight. School was closed for today and has been canceled for tomorrow. It feels very little house on the prairie-esque. I've been taking the dogs out on their leashes even in the back yard so i have something to fish them out of the snow with. For some odd reason my little Yorkies are snow lovers just like me. :) Of course, they have their doggie sweaters on and their super duty doggie jackets from Lands End with the reflective strips on them too. I am excited that I was able to capture the action with my camera. I will have to read the manual this weekend so i can learn the special settings.

So what do you do when you can't go anywhere? Well, you make some hot cocoa from Starby's with a shot of Hershey's chocky syrup. Mom ate all the leftover cool whip from thanksgiving otherwise i would have dumped some of that in. Then you put on your big snow skiing thick socks and fight over the good spot on the couch with your younger sister so that you can watch episodes of Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, and Men in Trees. All were very good. I am also 3/4 of the way through the book, The Innocent Man by John Grisham, a sad but compelling read. I think I will make some more embroidered pillow cases tomorrow. I finished the unicorn pillowcase for A-dolly this past weekend, and I have two more pillow cases that I can decorate. I also plan on cranking out some serious hats this weekend.

Also, for some random reason, I got an issue of Golf Digest for Women in the mail. I didn't subscribe to this at all. ya'll, I lived across the street from a public golf course for 18 years. I know how to pop wheelies in a golf course but I can't put to save my life. In fact, I'm not even sure how to swing. That's why it was so hilarious, when I got this magazine in the mail. it is very nicely put together, so if you do like to golf and you are female, I recommend this magazine. I think I am going to tear out the travel article on Savannah and then I will recycle the rest of the magazine...LOL...

Anyways, ya'll try to stay warm, I"m crawling under my ten layers of denim quilts and pillows and plan to finish reading my book tonight.

Good Things

1. This week's TWO ALL NEW episodes of Boston Legal. I loooovee you James Spader.
2. The Knit-A-Thon on Gilmore Girls
3. The digi cam that arrived in the mail for me today, I ended up getting the pink Fujifilm Finepix tiny cam.
4. the cold weather that is on the way
5.My books that arrived from Amazon.com
6. My vintage long sleeved Gap tee that I bought on Black Friday that is sooo soft.
7. The new snowflake stamps
8. Light Grenades, the new cd by Incubus
9. 24 hour Claritin D that is making it still possible to function in all this wet weather that is soo bad for my allergies
10. L Word season 3 on dvd

Anyways, these are a few things that have made me smile lately while work and school have been draggging on and I'm tired, etc. The trip to KC is all planned, I just hope we don't have any freaky weather cause I need an excuse to take pictures with my camera with. I am glad that it is Wednesday because my alleriges have really been bothering me and that makes me tired and cranky-poo. My sis and I might go to t-town on saturday if we don't get the alleged blizzard to end all blizzards like everyone says we are supposed. There is a book that BN ordered for me so we would go there if it comes in and the usually trip to tar-jay and Starby's trips. Since it is now like 33 and dropping my doggies have their matching green doggie sweaters on. I took pictures and it was cute.

The Aftermath

It appears that I have managed to have survived Black Friday. Hmm...I dragged my little sister at 5:30 am to go to the mall to people watch and experience insanity at its best. I skipped Staples because when we were pulling up to the mall, there was a line wrapping around staples and going to the edge of the highway. to hell with that. We walked into the mall and waiting because there was a crowd waiting for the 250 gift bags to be dispersed at 6 am. Through dumb luck, I managed to grab one and received a free George Stait cd and a ten dollar mall gift card. It was funny because we were totally at the end of the group too and we didn't really care if we got one or not. We made a mad dash for the Gap and we were like the first couple of people in the store. I scored two new pairs of jeans and a sweater hoodie, and three shirts all 50 % off. I also got baby high tops for Baby L. SCORE!!! Gap = Happyness. We made the obligatory visit to JC Penney's to visit S who just started working there. He has to wear a tie and button upped shirts. It was worth it to see that. He wears sloppy Ts and shorts year rounds, stains or no stains. He is a hoot to be around but definitely not a fashionista. We peaked in at Bath and Body Works but that store was full of middle aged woman rooting around in bins so we didn't venture far in. Plus, they had a mega line at the counter and i hate waiting in lines in tiny stores. then we went to Waldenbooks, i got the new John grishman for 50 % off, and some books to finish off A-dolly's christmas gift. We headed over to Big Lots so my sis could pick up some $5 barbies for her friends' little girls. Our final stop in the spree was Hastings where I finally found the L Word Season 3. I was happy and i didn't give a shit that I had to pay full price. I also reserved the new sisterhood of the traveling pants book that comes out in january.


Then we got home only to find out that my dad had this INSANE idea for us to go see that penguin movie Happy Feet in Tulsa and then eat at Cracker Barrel. We had to take two cars and it was insane cause Tulsa is very bad on Black Friday and there was a couple of times when I thought my sister and I were going to be scrambled eggs on the BA expressway because people down here really suck at driving. We ended up having to see Happy feet on the imax screen because it wasn't showing on the regular screen. It was a cute movie, but I am not really the cutesy animated movie type. I would have been a lot better seeing something like Bobby or The Queen or The Pursuit of Happyness. I like dramas. we made it to cracker barrel and because it was such an odd time to be eating we only waited 30 mins for a table. we had to ask three times for silverware and all our side orders got screwed up. How we did not kill each other, I don't know. I am finally starting to recover, after two mountain dews, three rapid release extra strength tylenols and a whole shit load of orajel because apparently i have been chewing on the inside of my cheek while i sleep at night and so i have a really raw spot on the dominant side of my mouth. i know, i'm a mess.

I did make at least two more hats today. I have made 9 so far over thanksgiving break. Still depleting my stash yarn which is good because i need to make room in my tiny ass closet for my sexy ass Gap jeans.

Sunshine, I brought home a little surprise for you from the Cracker Barrel. Hint: A breakfast condiment.

have a great holiday, and remember girls, if you are feeling stressed out, go hug your yarn. You will feel a lot better! :)

Hats and hats

Well, it is thanksgiving evening and I have made 7 hats since last night. I should get a gold star cause these hats were all made from STASH YARN. YAY!!! I could make more, but I have to stop periodically cause my elbow will hurt if i don't and i can't knit/crochet as a lefty. I took my grandma k to kmart on today after we had finished watching the parade and stuffing face with turkey. She doesn't have one nearby her anymore and she can only really do one store at a time and it's the only thing open on thanksgiving day. they weren't really having any useful to me sales, but i did get the new keith urban cd for only 7.99 so that was like a steal. cause keith urban makes good commuting cds. my dad and grandpa put up the xmas lights and no one fell off the ladder so that was good. i did wrap some xmas presents last night. my sis got presents for mom and dad on behalf of us both so i'm off the hook there. A-dolly is the hardest to buy for because my aunt d (her grandma) buys her the sun, the moon and the stars. I'm tempted to start a mutual fund for her or something useful like that. I love A-dolly to pieces but a 2 year old does not need $100+ American Girl dolls. LOL. I got new pictures of Baby L. She will be one in January and she is starting to toddle around and is growing up way too fast. I am going to order her some baby converses for Christmas. I wish my girls would stay little forever. It's just easier that way.

Out of boredom and the inability to sleep more than like 7 hours, I am going to get up early and go shopping. just for shits and giggles. I want to go to Gap Outlet and see if they have any good deals. I am debating about Staples. They have $7 flash drives but I don't want to go there and find out they only had like 2 in stock and you had to be like there waiting in line at 3am to get one. Lol...I just don't have the will to be a stealth shopper...I like to dawdle around too much. I do need more Mountain Dew. i am drinking my last can, and I can't be caffiene free on a holiday weekend. That would just be bad news.

happy thanksgiving ya'll!!! Especially Sunshine. I ordered us some entertainment and it should be arriving early this coming week.

Yarn and Pirates, Oh My!

Well, busy weekend so far. What did I do on Friday night? I think I just watched tv and started working on another hat for charity. Saturday morning, I took A's box to the post office and I went to Hobby Lobby just to see if they had received anything new. Nope. Then my mom, my sister and I went to Owasso/Tulsa. We started out in Owasso and went Christmas present shopping for the dogs at Petsmart. Then we went to Tar-jay to get Christmas presents for my sister's best friend's little girl. It is a lot of fun buying Barbies and my little ponies and having a legitimate excuse to. I mostly bought ornaments at Tar-jay. Then we went to Hancock Fabrics in Tulsa so that my mom could get a certain pattern and some sewing supplies that she couldn't get in town. Then we came home. I went to Hastings to look at magazines and long-lost E finally called me back. She wanted to go to the 9:45 showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 at the two-dollar theatre. I didn't really like the movie. I prefer Johnny Depp in non pirate outfits. We missed the first twenty minutes because she was late and she told me some scary drama stories about her life now. Why do good people do stupid things? I just felt really really old, while i was listening to her talk on the way home.

I have finished the crochet scarf by the way, in fact I think that is what i did on Friday night before I started the hat. I only purchased one skein of Bernat Cotton Tots this weekend to make more infant hats for charity. My swap partner for the Teeny Little dog swap on Craftster sent me some really ADORABLE doggie hats. They were crocheted and had little openings for their ears to poke out. Daisy kept trying to eat the pom poms and Haley was like "why am I wearing a hat? It is 50 degrees outside!" I was able to take some pictures before the batteries died on my digital.

My digital camera is going to heaven soon. It eats batteries like crazy and just doesn't work like it used to. So since I need a decent digital for the holidays I am going to order one next week with my video ipod fund. Sniff sniff...I will have a video ipod in 2007. It is sooo going to happen. This is the camera that I want:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5297432

I just want a point and shoot pretty much. I don't feel that I need a Canon Rebel to take pictures of my dogs or yarn stash. The main reason I like this camera is the 56 MB internal memory and the fact that it is really slim because my current one is very bulky. If they sell out of the pink then I will get it in silver. The white version looks too much like my ipod.

I spent most of this morning cleaning the house. My grandparents are coming from St. Louis on Wednesday and my dad comes back from a week long trip in Mexico so the laundry needed to be done before he brought all his dirty clothes home. I just have thursday and friday off but I plan out getting a lot of charity hat making done while my grandparents snooze in front of the tree.

I also made an excel spreadsheet for the holiday season. It lists all the people that I am either buying a present for or sending a card to. It has a check list feature as well. I even found Christmas cards with green and yellow tractors on them. YAY!!!! I need a list this year so I stay on track and don't forget stuff or buy too much. I am starting to like this whole saving my money thing a tad. I think it's because I don't want to be like the people on Big Spender (it's on A&E, he helps people get out of financial holes).

Happy Birthday, Sunshine!!!

On this day, a mere twenty-four years ago, my best friend was born. Even though we just met in college, I feel like I have known him my entire lifetime. I think that he knows more about me than I know about myself. I am very fortunate to have three very best friends, to walk beside me on this twisted journey through known as Life. I think it's important to let the people in your life know how much you care about them and how much you value their friendship, because friendship is a choice. There are sooo many great things about Sunshine. I knew right when I met him that we were going to have many adventures together.

Sunshine is probably my favorite person to travel with. We have been on the best road trips together, and his sense of direction is better which is good because my internal compass is broke. He knows that I like to get up early, and that I am much happier when I have five minutes to check my e-mail. He has really good taste in music. I had no idea who Incubus was until he played their cd for me in his little red car. He has this way of coaxing me to try new things without being forceful. He patiently stands next to me when i am debating over what colors of flip flops at Old Navy to buy or whether or not I really need all three skeins of yarn. he opens car doors and asks if you need a drink or an extra blanket.

When your world falls apart and you feel like total shit, he is there to listen to your sob story. He is really smart and creative. He can get high schoolers to march in unison. I had a couple of opportunities to watch him direct the band this fall, and it was so awesome to sit up in the bleachers and look out over the field at the band playing. I just sat there watching, with my eyes wide open, and it was so awesome seeing my best friend out on the field living his dream. He's actually doing something that he loves, and not too many people get to say that about their jobs. I know that he is going to go even farther in life, and I'm just glad that I get to be along for the ride. He respects me and that is a nice feeling. We don't always agree on everything, but we can agree to disagree. He makes crappy parties bearable. It's the little things really. the little everyday tiny kinds of things that make people incredible.

Happy birthday, my friend. You deserve all the happiness and pancakes with maple syrup in the world and a Broadway chorus to sing the birthday song in three part harmony with spirit fingers and tap shoes. Are you smirking yet?

What a Weekend

The haul from My trip to T-town:

1.really hot laptop bag/purse from Swiss Army...yes it's black but it has lots of pockets and real purse handles. It is not your average black laptop bag...and it is big enough for my intermediate accounting book and my laptop and two skeins of noro to fit inside...lol...plus all my other crap.

2.mini hello kitty christmas ornaments

3. The haul from Loops: one pair of addi turbos!!!!, two skeins of noro silk garden, one skein of Blue sky cotton in Thistle and one skein in black. I have already made a hat for myself last night out of the thistle...so pretty...and the scarf I am crocheting out of the Noro is almost done and it is sooo pretty...

4. Starbucks hot cocoa and peppermint sticks. I need something soothing while my office area is being re carpeted and I am stuck out in god knows where with a loaner craptop. Hopefully my cubicle walls don't fall apart when they jack it up three to six inches to slide the new carpet underneath...LOL....soooo Office Space

5. I bought a used copy of the movie Lake House with Keanu and Sandra in it....It is sooo awesome and the story is set in Chicago. What's not to love about that? It was sooo awesome I watched it three times already.

I made one baby hat on my way to T-town, but I was really tired from getting up too early.. That was all the damage I did to my wallet this weekend. I hid my debit card. It is only coming out of it's hidey-hole to be depleted by my gas tank until after Thanksgiving and then it can come back to my wallet again. I am really great at saving other people's money, but I suck saving my own money sometimes. I have seriously gotten better at it though. there is actually money in my savings account...holy crap, huh. I got a lot done this weekend, but it never feels like enough. I just don't have any time during the week to get time intensive things done because of my insane work and school schedule.

O Dark Thirty

So it is o dark thirty am on Saturday morning and I am awake because I have to take Daddy to the aeuropuerto so he can catch an 8:30 flight to Mexico (for business). Since we have to take him to the airport we are going to to go shopping in Tulsa afterwords. Tar-jay, BN and Loops are all involved in this ploy. My twisted peppermint lotion from B&B arrived yestgerday but my Sublime Stitching patterns that I ordered on Oct 16th still haven't yet. Oh cool, they included a free sample of PIna Colada Shower syrup. I like this! Screw going to the store, I'm going to have to order more stuff from them online since they gave me freebies.

Anyhoo, while I am on a shopping spree, I hope to get some cool yarn and some gadgets and maybe a book or too. I need to get some stuff for my Secret Pals, since i will be going to a non-acrylic real yarn store. I mean hello, they have Addi Turbos! That makes me excited because you can't just buy those at Wal-Mart. In the end the 12 hours of overtime I racked up during fiscal year end was a positive thing because reward is guilt free shopping in Tulsa! YAY!!!!

I would also like to thank my musical hero of the week, Ben Folds, for releasing his cover of Dr. Dre's song, B****** Ain't S***. It is just beautiful and the perfect song to listen to when you are frustrated with the world.

I would also like to give a quick shout-out to Sunshine, whose birthday is on Monday. I plan on a big cheesy happy birthday post for him then, but for now, I hope he is having an awesome birthday weekend.

Swoosh!!!

What kind of knitting needles are you?

You are "turbo" charged.Fast moving and classy, you get things done with power and grace. Your expensive tastes can be deceiving, since what you really value is quality and efficiency. As you're careening around those corners in life, finishing a dozen knitted objects each month, stop and smell the roses. Don't miss the beauty of process!
Take this quiz!








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Presents

I received a really awesome package from my Secret Pal 9 buddy today. It is SOOO COOL and I love it: It was full of the following:

one pair of circular knitting needles
1 skein of purple Caron Simply Soft (one of my faves)
1 skein of really bright Peaches and Cream dishcloth yarn (love the colors)
1 Waterfall scented candle (it is blue and it smells like really good)
1 set of Pomegrante scented soap/lotion/shower gel
1 cross stitch kit


Yay! I love it all and I was totally surprised and that is very hard to do. It was waiting for me when I came back from running errands this afternoon. Since it is November, I must get into gear on my holiday shopping/decorating/crafting. I finished another hat this morning. Last night I was at the Hallmark store and they have ornaments from A Christmas Story. I am now the proud owner of the Ralphie wearing the infamous pink bunny suit ornament. It is even fuzzy! I let out a little squeal in the store. I even ended up watching the movie this afternoon. It is one of my comfort movies. I'm just kind of lounging around and recovering from the fun week I had at work during fiscal year end.

I have Internet again!

Daddy fixed our screwed up wireless. YAY! Mackie is happy again. I am currently downloading all my podcasts and my homework. I have just caught up on reading blogs.

So the hell week of fiscal year end is basically over with. I did over 66 account reconciliations, with some accounts having over 7000 lines. My eye balls are shot. I had to get eye drops so I could keep them open, because they are drier than the Sahara desert. Wal-mart and others have started putting out their Christmas ornaments. I found tiny tractor and mini sweater ornaments. How perfect is that!

This wekend I plan on working on more hats for my holiday knitting. My stash is starting to multiply so I need to use it up. I have been also going through my Martha Stewart holiday magazines so I can figure out what kind of holiday stuff I want to make.

I'm in the middle of watching Grey's Anatomy tonight and it is sooo good.

I would like to say that the Barnes and Noble in Springfield has the best magazines and the largest selection of knitting and crochet books of any BN that i have been to. Total drool worthy. I survived spending a mere $26. Seriously, I spent like maybe 1/4 of what I typically do on a "shopping weekend." I must be getting sick or something. I had loads of fun with Sunshine this weekend. We drank some nasty wine (it started out sweet but it has a really bitter after taste). We also so did some rearranging in the living room, hence the bookcase project. So it was a good thing I spent a nice relaxing weekend with Sunshine, otherwise I would have ran screaming from my cubicle this week. Co-worker A thinks I should decorate my cubicle a little, to make my environment more pleasant. I told her I didn't have anything "workplace appropriate." LOL...I just tend to be a really private person at work.

Happy Halloween

Our wireless is really screwed up right now and my dad is in complete denial, so the internet only works on my mom's psycho computer and my dad's. SO until the weekend when I can secretly beat our router with a baseball bat, i am stuck using my mom's super slow computer. I am seriously considering going to the library and taking my laptop with me so i can use their wireless. I should have stayed at Sunshine's. I was having fun and life made more sense. It doesn't help that I spent 12 hours at work on monday and nine today plus class. fiscal year end is hell on earth.

On the positive side, i had an awesome weekend. I made four baby hats for caps to the capital. I will go into more details this weekend when my internet has improved.

Greetings from the Quad Cities

I am sitting at the airport and it is 1:55 and my flight does not leave until 4:45p.m. Most people would be annoyed but I have my Mackie and my cell phone so I am cool. So I thought I would send a shout out to everyone, especially Sunshine. See you soon darling! I would post more about my trip but it's company business related so I can't post about it on the internet. Other than things went really well (to the best of my knowledge). the wi-fi is free at the Quad Cities airport (not at the memphis one) and it was at the yucky hotel I stayed at. It was clean, but that was it. I am going to be flexible and not go on and on about why that hotel was yuck. But the company paid for so it's all good in the end. I got to have some ice creams at Whitey's ice cream. It's a famous ice cream place in the iowa/illinois area. The ice cream is dee-lish. I could really go for a big fat mountain dew right now. there seems to be a coke monopoly which is okay, but I really need a serious mountain dew fix right now. Can we say caffeine dependency? Nah...I didn't need my new wool coat either, but it would've probably snowed if i had left it at home.

While i've been away, my sis has informed me that J has sent me Chicago Cubs flip flops...How sweet is that? I can't wait to throw these dress shoes out the window and wear them. The dress shoes are pretty decent, but they don't compare to a nice pair of chucks or flip flops. My sis is jealous because she is an even bigger Cubs fan than me (and Daisy has chewed up most of her flip flops---i hide mine in the closet).

I am reading a biography about Marie Antoinette (the new movie is based on this book). It is pretty good so far. i discovered it at the airport in Memphis. At the QC airport I found a very rare special edition JD tractor (Ertl Premiere series) with muddy tires!!! I about squealed. They only put a very limited few with muddy tires in each tractor series and I have only seen them in collector's books. This is one tractor that I will have to leave in the plastic because typically take them out. . I can't wait to show my dad. LOL....

I have received several compliments on my hot pink adidas duffel bag that I have been traveling with. It makes things a lot easier to find especially in a luggage pile. People have also been checking out Mackie. Thank god I got a 12" because the 17" would not have fit on the airplane trays of the puddle jumpers I have been flying on for this trip. They are two seats by two seats. One time i flew from denver to palm springs on a one by one and that was tiny ass.

The Tease of Winter

It tried to frost this morning. Yesterday, it was a very cold 50 degrees and I could wear a coat (not buttoned of course). I managed to find a suit for the big trip this week and a pair of shoes I won't kill myself walking in. Surprisingly I found them at Target, the last place I looked. I can always find cute shoes there, but their clothing sizes are really odd and vary so much by brand that I can't usually find anything. But I did, which was great because I couldn't find anything at home, and I really really reaally really didn't want to go to T-town. The holiday season is trying to begin and it is getting more crowded and traffic and parking are bitches at the big mall. The whole day was kind of a blur actually. I feel like I have gotten nothing accomplished since all I really did was suit shopping yesterday. I just want to make it to November 1st and have fiscal year-end and the work trip over with. I did manage a quicky stop to Hobby Lobby. I got the new issue of Crochet Today which has some cute projects in it. I got two more balls of sugar and cream in colors I hadn't used before. LOL. Like I need more yarn.

Pop Quiz!

So this quiz has been floating around the Secret Pal 9 organizers, and i saw it on one of their blogs and thought it would be fun.

Actor - Don't have a particular favorite
Actress - Don't really have a favorite actress
Animal - My two little Yorkies, Daisy and Haley
Band - Um, see the attached 20 page file...Like there is that many. Aerosmith, Kenny Chesney, The Bangles, The GoGos, Bon Jovi, The Killers
Beverage - Mountain Dew, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Amish wine, straight Jack Daniels
Book - Too many favorites. i am currently reading Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
Bubble Bath - Green Apple Suave Shampoo...Lol...It is sooo cheap and it smells so good. I also love Victoria Secret's Love Spell
Candy - Skittles and Starbursts
Color -black, blues and dark purples
Flower - hot pink Gerbera daisies, unusually colored roses--hot pink, dark purple/black
Food - pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut
Lip Balm - Bonne Bell Dr. Pepper (soooo yummmy)
Lotion - Victoria's Secret Love Spell
Movie - Fried Green Tomatoes and A Christmas Story ( i have the special edition dvd that i watch year round AND I watch the marathon every year on TV
Song -Way too many to even narrow down
TV Show - Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, QAF, Desperate Housewives, Wifeswap, Supernanny, Boston Legal
Yarn - Rowan Summer Tweed, Sugar and Cream, cheesy Christmas Holiday yarn
Vacation Spot - Chicago and Iowa City (vacation is wherever you have the most fun and i have a ton of fun in Iowa City). Dream Spots: Ireland, London, Berlin, Alaska, Vancouver, factory tours (I love those!)

These Chucks were Made for Walkin

Wow. So it is Sunday night and I am pooped. Yesterday was a craft store marathon in T-Town. We went to two non-craft stores at the mall, Jo-Ann's, Babies R Us, Hancock Fabrics, a quilt store and Barnes and Noble. My heels are really sore now for some reason. Maybe I have grown accustomed to sitting in a cubicle all day. I try to get up and walk a lot but there aren't too many places I can go. I finished the camo family of hats--one for A-dolly and her mom, one for her dad and a baby girl and a baby boy one since we don't know if A-dolly is going to have a little sister or a little brother yet because her parents want to be surprised. My aunt D and my mom had two sewing machines constantly going when we weren't shopping. They were making clothes for all the babies that we know that have been recently born or will be born soon. They were also making lots of doll clothes for A-dolly. She is going to be Cindy-relly for Halloween and she looks beautiful in her costume. I still prefer my role as the fairy godmother. I have also made two other hats for charity, since it is that time of year again. I am getting closer on the rainbow dish cloth. I also got almost two yards of Hello Kitty pink Rock and Roll polar fleece that is soooo warm and soft. Like I really needed a new blankie but it was 40% off!!! That stuff can be between $10 and $14 a yard depending on what is printed on it and the grade of fleece used.

It rained a lot this weekend so my allergies are screwed up again. And my car is in the shop. Through a sick twist of fate, somehow a rock flew up in the undercarriage of my beloved 03 Subaru Forrester and ruined the air conditioner, radiator and something else related that is expensive. So it is at the dealership, awaiting parts and a $2000.00 repair bill. I am now officially indebted to my father for all eternity now for bailing me out on this one. did i mention the rental car is in his name so i can't technically drive it? He took the car to the dealership in Tulsa on Friday while I was at work. Lets hope the parts get here super fast. it really sucks having to bum rides off of people and driving unfamiliar cars. Did I mention I left my good cds and my sunglass clips in since I didn't know it was going to have to have a shitload of repair work done? we just thought the air conditioner was having problems and needed more juice or something...Sniff sniff....Some random mechanic gets to listen to my Justin Timberlake and the new Killers cds!!! I miss my car!!!

Work and school are insane as usual.My goal is to make it until Nov. That is when things should calm down except for the school part maybe. Honestly, though, I thrive on insanity. I like challenges and having things to do. I get bored very easily.

I think those are all the stories that I can tell on the internets.

Taco Tuesday

I had to share this because i am an accountant in training and a Mac freak:

"http://www.apple.com/business/profiles/cowen/"

Yay! That is like the coolest thing ever. I wish I could use a Mac at my job...Gilmore Girls was awesome tonight. Props to Rory for learning the joy of dirty text-messaging. I got a b-day present from Watergirl today. She sent me vintage copies of The Workbasket from the 50s and two ADORABLE cutesy doggie bandanas. There is an opening for their collars to slide through and I damn near squealed when I pulled them out of the envelope. I am going to make sure that the doggies are wearing their bandanas when Aunt D arrives. She will crack up. Yes, I am a dog freak and I dress my dogs up when they will allow it. I have finished 4.5 out of 5 camo hats. lol...The things I do for family. At least three of them are pink camo, that makes me feel better. My car is still sick, the temp outside dropped like 20 almost today and my pos front defroster is even more of a pos since the air conditioning quit. But we HAVE to drive my car and not my dad's. I had to drive today cause he felt like sleeping on the commute. Must be nice. Honestly, I'm just severely sleep and fun deprived and college + 50 or more hours of work a week really bites ass. But I know when I'm finally an accountant, it will be all worth it. The change in weather is also messing with my allergies, hence the sinus and ear pain that makes me bitchier. LOL...At least I am honest. Speaking of pain, I hope you feel better Sunshine. I promise there will be plenty of ice cream and adult beverages for your birthday fiesta.

I also got a really nice note from F.I.R.E., the organization that runs the Dulaan Project. this past Spring ( i think) I sent them 40 knitted hats, because that's what i like to do. i like to crochet dish cloths and knit hats on my looms because it is repetitive and I don't have to think to much. I just thought it was cool that they actual sent me a formal thank-you, it was completely unexpected. I also got a voice mail while I was in class from my friend E. She was the first person I became friends with my senior year in OK and she has moved back to town. Very random, but so is our friendship. The last couple of weeks I have heard from all kinds of people that I hadn't heard from in awhile, with the expection of N. People still talk about him at work even though none of us have heard from him since July (i was the last one he talked to). It's almost like he has achieved mythic status. Just like he wanted.

anyhoo, I am really rambling, I will blame all of this on the massive amount of claritin-d that I must take so that I will be able to breathe and hear in the morning.

Random Thoughts Sunday

I was able to finish two hats today. One was a camo colored hat for K (he wanted one in time for hunting season) and then I found this girly camo yarn that looks really pretty, so I made a little girly camo colored hat for his daughter (my god-daughter) A-dolly. She's daddy's little girl. Aunt D promised me that she would bring me loads of pics of A-dolly when she comes down on Thursday.

I am currently taking a break from doing all my accounting homework. Because of the insanity of this week and visitors this coming weekend I won't really have time to do it otherwise without losing mass amounts of sleep. The only other major thing i really did today was the dishes and massive amounts of laundry. I live with complete slobs. I love my family but they are total slobs. I've pared down my stuff to the point where i can't really get rid of anything else, otherwise i would just end up re-buying it later. I did find another stash of sucky cds buried in my closet. lol..I really had no idea what was in my closet other than it was neatly packed away.

Anyways, I promise to have more newsy stuff to report next Sunday. If i don't go insane by then (insert sarcastic smile here).

It's Crafty Saturday....

So much going on really. I am participating in a new swap on Craftster and I am soooo stoked because I am a member of Secret Pal 9! So this means, I need to get it together and get my craft on. Hmmm what else. Well, now that I am 26 i got this idea in my head that I should start wearing mascara. It looks great once it's all done, but it takes me like a good ten minutes to do it right and I end up poking my poor left eye out because I am not good at using the wand. LOL. I am a mess sometimes. I had a 40 % coupon for Hobby Lobby so I was going to finally buy some fancy rosewood crochet hooks and that stuff was on sale! I stocked up on some crochet and knitting implements (they were on sale and you can't have enough of them) So lucky for me, I found a hello kitty scrapbook paper (it is SO COOL) set to use the coupon because they haven't updated the knit and crochet books at that store in like three years or else they get one copy and someone buys it right away. that's what you get for living far from a big city. i would talk in more detail about specific crafts i will be making today, but since the people i am making them for could potentially read this blog, my lips are zipped.

In the book world, my current bed time stories are Son of a Witch (sequel to Wicked) and the Fight Club. Did I mention I am a Type A - ? I am not counting my accounting books as pleasure reading since that's homework and homework is not fun even if you like the subject.

The cleaning project is going well. the feminist magazines and yarn porn are now stashed in nifty martha stewart regulation magazine holders. My dvds have an actual home (well the ones that are kept in room and not with the family stash do). My cds are organized still. The dust bunnies have been banished to OZ.

Secret Pal 9 Questionnaire

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
I love Sugar and Cream dishcloth yarn (bright colors) and Rowan Summer Tweed (i really love the blues and purples). I am a wool freak even though I live in a very warm place right now. I don't like fuzzy yarns cause they are a pain to work with. Acrylic is okay as long as it doesn't feel like plastic. lol.. I use a lot of Caron's Simply Soft for charity projects.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

I store my needles in an Eskimo Joe's cup and my hooks in a celestial print roll-up case that my mommy made me. I am a purse freak so I am always buying little pouches to carry my supplies in cause i get bored easily.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced? I am a rebel crocheter since 2003. I have been knitting on and off but I am really awful at hand knitting but I love to loom or machine knit. So I would say very much beginner on the knitting front and intermediate on the crochet side.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
No, but I should...

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products, etc.)

Lime, cherries, green apple. I don't like spices or anything that smells like old lady.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

Hershey's milk chocolate, skittles, starburst, Orbit gum

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

embroidery, cross stitch, i make bottle cap magnets. I don't spin but I think it's really cool.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

The Killers, Justin Timberlake, Kenny Chesney, marching band music, really I am a music lover. I am in the process of upgrading from a 3rd generation ipod to a video ipod. Ooh, I like Sleater-Kinney too...Alternative rock is probably the genre I listen to the most. I am an Itunes fanatic, i download music all the time. I just bought a mac powerbook this year (12''), so I am definitely tech savvy.

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?

I love blues, purples, hot pink, aqua, black, rainbow colors, i look nasty in yellows and oranges. yeah, I am very pale, my skin doesn't see the sun ever.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

single and lovin' it. I have a very close friendboy and some best friends that are scattered everywhere and two Yorkies, Haley and Daisy, and a mom and a dad that have been married forever.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

I have a big head so I like hats, but they can't be tight. I don't do ponchos, but I love scarves and mittens. I would really like a pair of black fingerless gloves...that would be really cool.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

I like to crochet hats, scarves, dishcloths/washclothes, squares for charity, little baby sweaters cause they are quick.

13. What are you knitting right now?

I just started crocheting another dishcloth

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

of course!!!

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

I prefer metal hooks or heavy woods. I am starting to learn on circulars, so some lonely orphaned addi turbos would be awesome. I have a tendency to break plastic and cheap bamboo stuff.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

No, that is on my list of things to get when I win the lotto.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?

usually they get frogged or they don't get started. so i don't think i really have one.

18. What is your favorite holiday?

Halloween and Valentine's Day. I like Christmas when it snows. I like random holidays too.

19. Is there anything that you collect?

John Deere stuff, huge Hello Kitty fan, love Converse Chuck Taylors

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

Hookorama by Rachael Matthews, I don't think it's out yet and I have banned myself from buying crafty books until January. Like I mentioned earlier, I would love some addis or Rowan summer tweed (really anything from Rowan) I don't subscribe to anything but I would really like to have a copy of Rebecca in the German edition but the English edition would be cool. I don't live near any actual yarn stores so I am very deprived.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

Not any that I can think of other than I would like to be profient at knitting someday.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

Yeah, I'm not that great at knitting yet, so I can't make those. I am a size 8 US.

23. When is your birthday? (mm/dd)

Lol...I just had it. Sept 25th.

Seriously Part 2

WARNING::: RANT AHEAD...

So this bee-yatch at wal-mart informed me that my coupons (that i had cut this morning) were expired before she even scanned or looked at them. Just because I took a bath and was nicely dressed doesn't mean I can't use coupons. So I told her to double check and then she got all huffy and scanned them and low and behold, they were of course good. Unfortuneatly the nearest target is like 30-40 minutes away. Anyways, I just had to rant about that, cause I worked in retail and received numerous 100% customer feedback survey scores so it really hacks me off when I treated like shit in a store. Low prices shouldn't have to equal low service. I will point out that I have been to some decent wal-marts that have semi-speedy and decent service but they are not located in my town. We don't have the self-checkout lanes either (and they just renovated too...) Seriously...

HAPPY TIMES:
Anyways, so last night at like 1 am , after much procrastination I finally went through my cds and made two piles: sucks and doesn't suck. When my sister came back from Stilly this morning, we took the sucky cds back to Hastings and I made $76. I would like to thank my ex boyfriend for giving me the crappy rap cds that I sold back for $3-5 each. My sister gave me hell for even owning a Lindsey Lohan cd,but she was worth $2, it was all good to me. Lol...So now I can definitely buy a video ipod this month without having to go on a caffiene diet. YAY!!! Now I can find my cool cds again, i have less clutter and I am closer to buying a new video ipod in a more "responsible way." Selling back cds is a long and pain in the butt process, so I made my sister go with me so I wouldn't get too fidgety (and her car's air conditioning works).