Domestic Geek

Today was the first official snow for the area of 2010. Not the first snow I've seen, since I got the pleasure of driving in snow over Wolf Creek Pass last month when I drove down to Farmington, NM to visit my old college pal, Angie. Not thrilled as it didn't snow that much, so the roads will most likely be icy on the way into work tomorrow morning. Normally, I'm off on Wednesdays, but since I had to take a sick day last month and thus have no remaining vacation hours left, I had to trade with someone to get this Saturday off. I'm going to spend part of the day at a friend's house doing a pre-holiday knitathon. Friends, food, beverage and holiday knitting — a much better way to spend a Saturday than doing prepress work. Hopefully, I'll have some progress to show off since I really haven't been getting a whole lot of crafting done lately.

Since I wrote about it earlier in the week, I guess I should mention how well mentholated chest rub (I'm using Walgreen's generic brand) works on the soles of one's feet. Surprisingly well! It doesn't give a whole night of relief, but it does help a whole lot right after it is applied. In fact, I have it on my feet as I type. Last Saturday I was even rubbing it on my feet at work to get through the shift. Anybody out there know why it works? Is it pressure points, gets into the bloodstream, or is it something else? I'd like to know.

OK, I'm going to go knit a bit and watch the Mythbusters episode from last week (I fell asleep in the middle while Marcus and I were watching it) while I wind down to sleep. I have a feeling it is going to take a while to get to work in the morning.

Ok, since I can't seem to get myself to blog on a regular basis anymore, I'm giving myself a little assignment. Every Monday I'm going to log in here and doing a recap of the week before (going off my tweets and Facebook statuses). Maybe that little bit of effort will develop into a blog writing habit again (because the inability to blog lately is just that I've gotten out of the habit).

Last Monday I took myself on a little road trip since I was feeling the need to get out of the house. I had been looking for some orange cotton yarn to make the Pumpkin Washcloth on this page. I was having a heck of a time finding a pumpkin orange, though. That's one thing I really hate about trends in crafts...sometimes its hard to find what you want. I decided to head up to Boulder and see if the store up there had any. Well, they ended up having a burnt orange (not quite what I wanted), but it was more money than I was willing to spend for a washcloth.

Feeling a little defeated (since I've looked at all the yarn stores around me, as well, with no luck), I decided to treat myself to lunch. I had received a freebie card from Larry, the owner of Tokyo Joe's, during a little promotion he did on Twitter/Facebook. I stopped at the location in Louisville and then was going to go up to the quilt store in Lafayette since I was in the area. I thought the card got me a free bowl or something. When I fished it out of my purse, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it entitled me to an entire comped meal. WooHoo! So, I went ahead and ordered a big steak bowl, sushi and a drink. I tweeted my thanks to the owner while I was eating and got a reply back. I'd love to meet Larry one day. He seems like a really cool dude.

I had decided to check the web site of the quilt store to make sure they were open on Mondays before I headed North. Good thing I had, they were closed. For good. I was really bummed. That was such a great little store and though I couldn't visit often, it will be missed.

A friend suggested (via a Facebook plea I made) that orange cotton could be obtained at Wal-Mart. I didn't really want to go there as I had decided earlier never, ever to shop there again, but I was weakened by my disappointments earlier in the day and just wanted to get the darned washcloth cast on. I stopped at one on the way home and they did have some. I thought about picking up some other stuff, but I stuck to my intent and left with two balls of cotton. I decided to stop into the Hobby Lobby down the street to kill some time as it was now rush hour and I am really hating driving in Denver with a passion anymore. I was looking at the Halloween and Christmas decorations. I don't know if it is my want to simplify my life or if stuff out anymore just sucks, but I was not tempted to buy one single thing. I did grab a skein of brown cotton that was on sale. Maybe I'll make a turkey washcloth to go with the pumpkin one.

Tuesday night I went to my knitting group in Parker, but I was the only one that showed up. I'm a little bummed, because it appears for all intents and purposes that the group is dead. It's not the first time I had been the only one or it was just me and one or two others. There is a group that meets there on Wednesday (and I did go this week), but it is only two hours and sometimes it is a royal pain to fight rush hour traffic to go down for a two hour group. Plus, I work early Thursdays and sometimes I have stuff I need to do. I really wish there was a group that was closer to where I live, but there is not.

Work was slow this week. I didn't put in a full 13 hour shift any of the 3 days I was scheduled.

Thursday, I won a free dinner for two at Tokyo Joe's from a contest that was on Facebook. I'm on a roll!

Thursday was also when that whole Balloon Boy hoax nonsense started. What a crock. Then I saw a tweet from one of the local news stations that David Layne (the Ward Churchill attorney) was going to represent the Heene family. One attention whore representing another. These people are real pieces of work. This is what this whole reality TV insanity creates. I really wish people would stop watching this garbage.

Friday I got permission to leave work early (not hard when there was little work) and attended a class on starting an embroidery business. Marcus got me a machine two years ago and frankly, I've been scared to learn to use it. It's insane the little games I play in my head, but I think I'm finally ready to give this a shot. One thing the instructor said that really rang true with me is that sometimes we have a hard time giving value to what we do. We think that because we can do it, why couldn't somebody else? Why would they want to buy something I make so easily? I have this problem with my graphic design skills, too. I'm going to head over to the sewing store either later today or first thing tomorrow to see if I can find someone to teach me to run my machine. Today, though, I need to clean the craft room so that I can actually get to the machine. It is a disaster area and I literally can't get in the door. The woman that taught the class owns an operation in Chattanooga, TN. In February, she's going to start allowing people to come to her for 3-day seminars to learn all they can from her about the business. I really want to go as I believe the experience would be awesome. Starting to save up my money to go now.

Yesterday (Sunday), Marcus agreed to go the the pumpkin farm with me. I'm wishing I hadn't asked him to take me. I knew from news stories that the hard freeze we had a couple of weeks ago did major damage to the pumpkins in the fields. Together with the wetter than normal spring and the cooler than normal temps this summer, the crops weren't very good this year. I was still cautiously optimistic that I would find some decent pumpkins. Yeah, not so much. First, the crowds were bigger than I have ever seen. The pumpkins were tiny compared to previous years and mushy from the freeze. Plus, they were still charging full price. I asked Marcus to take us home and apologized profusely for dragging him up there. Oh, well...next year. Fortunately, Target is having a sale on pumpkins this week. I picked up a couple of nice ones for $2.99/ea. They're better than nothing.

We've been lucky this year as far as wasps. Yesterday, our luck broke. When I opened the door to see what the weather was like, wasps were swarming like crazy around our front door. Looks like there might be a nest up the light pole. After we got back from the pumpkin farm, I set about baiting the wasp traps. Looks like I've caught quite a few already today. Man, I hate wasps.

Today I've got several projects on the agenda. Besides housework, I'm working on a sleeve for my Macbook.I want to finish my pumpkin washcloth. I've got a quick graphic design project for a friend that I need to complete. I have to paint the trim on a tile floor Marcus build to put under the rabbit cage and I need a nap. Also, now that Marcus upgraded our webserver so that my craft blog no longer crashes php like it has been doing since January, maybe I can finally finish up my craft blog design and start the reworking of this site.

There. That sums up last week. Let's see if I can get back into the blogging habit.

I checked out the weather forecast before bed last night. I knew a cold front was coming in and we'd be nowhere near yesterday's mid-60 temps, but I opened my door to leave for work this morning to snow! The weathercasters on the radio were, "Oops, we totally didn't see that coming." No shit, Sherlock. Of course, it also happens to be the same day I left my phone at work the day previously, so I couldn't even call to say I'd be late. Since nobody expecting it nor was ready for it, the streets were yucky. Sheer ice in some spots. As per typical Colorado, it warmed up enough that the drive was absolutely no problem for Marcus a couple of hours later.

Every year I try to find an ornament that signifies something special that happened the previous year. I haven't been able to do it due to finances the last couple of years, but I hit the Hallmark store today to see what I could get for this year. I didn't find squat. I was thinking something to do with knitting since I finally learned how. No dice. Nothing really signified a full time with benefits job. Other than that, no major milestones happened this year. Well, except for having to put our beloved Skippy down, but who wants an ornament to remember that?

I have noticed a lot of ornaments from various manufacturers out for A Christmas Story this year. I thought maybe it was a 25th anniversary thing or something, but according to IMDB, the movie came out in 1983.

I need to get to bed so I get up on time tomorrow morning. It's supposed to snow a couple of inches overnight and be really cold in the morning. Yucky. I hate cleaning off the car in the morning. Guess I'd better dig out my heavy coat.

I did finally go this evening to get new wiper blades. I figured I had better take care of that before we get a lot of snow. I actually needed new ones last winter and kept putting it off. I'm such a slacker. AutoZone was having some kind of sale, so I got a set of winter blades for less than $10 when I was expecting to have to pay over $20. w00t! I'm glad I decided to drive that little extra distance rather than stopping at the Advance that is closest to home. I actually used to work at that AutoZone a few years ago, but it's been quite a while since I set foot in it. I didn't recognize a single employee in there and the store didn't even really look the same. That was a little weird.

I had to stay late again at work this evening. We have so much work to do this week. Lots of clients were promised proofs before Thanksgiving and I'm not sure they're all going to get done. I can't stay late tomorrow, though. I've got pumpkin pies to bake and food to prep for Thursday. Besides, my whole shift on Thursday will be OT, so it'll be good if I don't stay. I wonder which supervisor is covering that day — I totally forgot to ask. I may regret agreeing to work depending on who it is.

Man, we had some wicked weather here last night! Right about the time last night, the wind whipped up and rain came down so hard it stripped leaves off of trees and I couldn't see my neighbor's trailer. It knocked our satellite reception out for about a half hour. Made me miss the end of "How I Met Your Mother." Grrrrr. Oh, well. There was significant street flooding around town and several tornado warnings. It let up after about an hour, but rained steadily for most of the evening. It was so freaking humid today because of it. Ugh. At least tonight was calm and let me watch the Gilmore Girls series finale. I'm really pissed that Rory turned down Logan's marriage proposal last week. I'm sure that is just some of my own issues from college rearing its ugly head, but it was still lame.