Musings

As I was leaving the grocery store the other day, I saw a license plate holder that got me thinking...

It was for the Lion's Club and it had the motto "We Serve" on it. It reminded me of that dancing movie "You Got Served":

It would be funny if after the Lion's Clubber's did some good in the community, they were all like, "You Got Served!".
That is all.

Wordful Wednesday

It's a winter wonderland!

Here's the snowy view from my front door (which is technically more of a back door since the road is on the other side of the house). The tiki torch looks somewhat out of place in the snow! You can see in the picture that I have a soccer field in my backyard (front yard?) which is nice because I've only seen a handful of soccer games in the entire time I've lived here and the rest of the time it's like I have a ginormous yard.

So because of the snow, I'm taking the day off work. My car is terrible in the snow and I get a bit white knuckled driving in poor weather conditions. I'll have to go in Friday, which sucks because I work Sunday-Thursday typically but I have so much stuff to get done at work since a big portion of my "desk time" has taken a backseat to getting everything ready for the upcoming Monet show. I have been helping install the corresponding children's area and it can be a real time suck. The good thing is that installing an interactive children's area is more fun than paperwork and reports for grants. The bad thing is that all that paperwork is still waiting for me.

I see that the Kraemer Yarn store has a knitting class at 1pm today which I may try to go to...though if I can make it to the store, I could have made it to work, right? I want to learn some of the other stitch patterns besides garter and stockinette because, 1. they're cool and 2. garter stitch is somewhat boring to do (yet perfectly nice and functional) and stockinette just isn't really suited for flat things. (Hello, curly tube!) I really like the ladies there and the "class" is more of a Stitch 'n Bitch that has someone there to fix all your mistakes and help you get through a tricky pattern. Of course the ladies there will teach whatever you want to know, but it isn't a structured class where you all make one thing. It's more like bring whatever you're working on and shoot the breeze. I can tell already that most of the ladies there are expert knitters who are really just socializing. Which is cool, because there are tons of people who can help you if the leader of the class is busy with another knitter.

The seed stitch is calling my name, so I may have to brave the elements.

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Ticked-off Tuesday

Remember the recent post about my awesome cats? Well here's a story about one of them being particularly un-awesome.

McFluffin is the biggest cat we have, yet he is the biggest scaredy cat. Penelope is a real bitch for some reason and hisses at him every time she sees him. (Which is quite sad, since I hoped they would be boyfriend and girlfriend.) Her and Bubsy were weird at first, but after a few weeks everything was fine, they would snuggle and love. Then when we got McFluffin, Penelope hated everybody! She started hissing at Bubsy and McFluffin. Bubsy goes after her too, but that's because he's so stupid he thinks she's playing. McFluffin however runs away and hides like a baby, even though he could knock her lights out with one swipe of his gigantic six-fingered hand. But he doesn't. He's too much of a lover, I guess.

Well, I was worried because McFluffin has been with us about 3 weeks or so and he still doesn't want to come out of the bedroom. He lives on the bed. I call him my "bed-time bear" because he lets you spoon with him and he's always in the bed. My sister-in-law said that he always snuck out at night to eat and use the "facilities", so I assumed that's what was going on, until he gets more comfortable and Penelope gets over her attitude problem. (I think she'll be fine eventually, since her and Bubsy are friends now.) Au contraire mon frère!

I was laying on my bed yesterday evening and I saw McFluffin hop into a shopping bag from the store Express, which I keep my old notes from weaving classes as well as many yards of fabric for weaving. "How cute, McFluffin's in a bag. Aww." HE WAS TAKING AN F'ing PEE IN THE BAG. I was afraid to startle him or try to stop him as he was peeing because I was picturing his pee spraying all over the room. After I recovered from the shock of losing all that fabric and my treasured weaving notes being used as a toilet, it dawned on me...where's he been pooping? If he isn't brave enough to pee in the litter, where is the poop? Well friends, let me tell ya where the poop was. In my closet! Yay. I don't have a regular closet since my apartment was an old post office and there is only one closet in the whole place and it isn't in the bedroom. I use one of those portable type ones from Target that is made of metal rods that fit together. I hung curtains from the frame of the closet so it looks nicer than that nylon covering that is supposed to zip up over the "closet".

The box in my closet which contains my prized Coach bag was covered in cat barf. Luckily, the bag was safe. (I think it was upsetting his stomach to switch foods, but I have to have everyone eat the same stuff. I wouldn't know how to regulate the cats eating different food.) When I picked up the Coach box, I saw it. A mountain of fossilized cat shit. Nice. Disgusted and feeling betrayed, I look further. I decide to pull all my clothes out and really evaluate the situation. Guess what! My clothing that was hanging on the lower bar (there are two bars top one is pants, lower one is my button up shirts) WAS ALL COVERED IN CAT PISS!

Have I been wearing piss clothes and not known it? I do have kind of a lot of clothing from the 3 years I was the women's merchant for the Gap, so maybe I kept getting lucky and didn't pull out piss-clothes. Maybe I've worn sweaters everyday since we've gotten McFluffin and since I keep those folded on a shelf in the linen closet in the bathroom they were not victimized by my cat. (Yes, in the bathroom with my towels. No closets, remember?) I threw out all the white/light colored stuff that was violated and I am washing all the dark stuff that I am assuming was pissed on, but I can't be certain. If it smells funny after washing, I'm tossing it. I do not know how I didn't smell any of this in the bedroom.

So, if you've thought that I smelled like cat piss for the last few weeks, I apologize.

It's the shizz-knit.

I like to learn new things. After crocheting for a couple of months, I kept seeing projects I'd like to make, but they were knitted. Well, I am not one to be left out, so I'm learning to knit! It is so fun. It's not really harder than crochet, just different. I always had heard how much more difficult knitting was than crochet, but that is simply not true, in my experience.
Lucky for me I live near the Kraemer Yarn store where I took some lessons.

This is something simple I'm working on:

My husband saw the yarn and asked for a small blanket. I told him to expect it in a few years. It's made with Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick. Lemme tell you, those folks at Lion aren't kidding. It is thick and quick!

He also requested a mohair scarf, so I have this going as well:

It's made from 2 strands of Kraemer Yarn's Fountain Hill brushed mohair. Very nice. Both projects are in a simple garter stitch. I learned to purl, and produced a very official looking swatch of stockinette, but I decided to keep these knit, knit, knit. They will both be long projects, so I thought I'd make them a mindless non-pattern to move them along faster. The mohair is fingering weight, so the scarf is growing very slowly. Doesn't that sound gross?

Fingering weight?

Good news!

I usually hate opening my mail because I know it's mostly bills I can't pay and threatening letters from credit card people. However, yesterday I got a little gift in the mail! It was from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and they told me that my husband's unemployment is getting extended again! Yippee! I can still live in my apartment! For 20 more weeks at least! Freaking awesome. I am really happy that I know that we're going to be okay for a little while longer, but I am eagerly awaiting the day that we can have a little financial stability. I don't care if we're still broke, but I just want to know what I'm working with. I can't wait to get all the credit card people off my ass, but I don't want to start cleaning up those aspects of my life until I can properly budget for them. Right now, it's rent, gas and electric (okay, and TV, my cell phone and the Internet, I'm not a monk). Thanks for listening.

Now for some not so good news. But it is for the best. I will be taking a break from roller derby, possibly for now, possibly for ever. I really need to focus on my life at home and what's best for my husband. Being a part of roller derby has changed me forever and I will be forever grateful that I was able to be a part of something so amazing. Thank you for everything derby sisters! On the bright side, the women all over the world who are involved in roller derby are so amazing that I know it will be around if and when I am ready to return.

He is...McFluffin!

I know this isn't the coolest thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. I love my cats!

They are so funny and they all have such different personalities. I know this sounds totally pathetic and you probably didn't realize that you were reading the blog of a 60 year old woman, with the crocheting and cat talk and all. Since we moved out last year, we've only had one cat, Penelope (pronounced Peen-a-loupe, rhymes with cantaloupe. It's from the movie Club Dread. RENT IT.)

Then in September, we bought Bubsie. In this picture I am wearing drawstring pants and he is fighting the drawstring. This is pretty much Bubsie in a nutshell:


And finally, big beautiful McFluffin! (Like McLovin from Superbad). We just got him and he used to belong to my sister-in-law, but she has a German Shepard, and the two did not mix. He is a Maine Coon, about 3 years old and we got him cut into a "lion cut" to make all that hair more manageable. Mr. Fight wears only black and the cat's hair was a freaking mess. I couldn't sleep on my pillows without cat hair in my eyes and up my nose. Here he is:

Here's the back view to show off the full splendor of his ridiculous tail:

There you have it! The loves of my life.

A year in review.

I suppose it's time for the "new year's post". Yes, it's a little late. I am looking forward to having a good year. 2008 was not my year. I can't say it was all bad, many wonderful things happened in the past year, but it definitely had it's downside...

I did not expect Mr. Fight to still be unemployed. He was let go in March and he still hasn't found anything. To be fair, he did not start looking until, I'd say August. His mother passed away in late 2007 and he took it really hard. He went into a bad funk and by March he got fired for calling out. This did not help his funky funk. I told him to take some time to himself and sort of get it together, reevaluate his medication, etc. THEN start looking for a new job. I've been down this road enough to know that trying to shove him right back out the door and off to a new job wouldn't really be productive. He'd likely end up losing the new job and feeling worse than if he had just waited til he was better able to be a good employee. So since August my dear husband has been looking for a job and there is nothing! There is only a few crappy jobs that pay like $8 an hour. My husband has gone to apply for these crappy jobs, since $8 is more than the couch pays him to sit on it per hour. He never got a call! He was applying to work at a thrift store unloading a truck or something. I bet they are just so inundated with applicants since there is nothing better listed in the papers. Gah. The good news is that they keep extending his unemployment. That has to end sometime, though, and when it does, we are F-U-C-K-E-D. But enough about that.

Honestly, if I had no money woes, things would be all gravy. I bet a lot of people could say that, though, huh? I'd like to add here, though, that I don't totally mind being poor. Well, sometimes. It makes me really appreciate everything I have and it has made me learn what a necessity truly is (sort of...) Of course I still consider thing necessities that really aren't (hello nicotine!), but I've learned to do with out so much that I may have been used to. The biggest thing that has sucked about the last year is how bad I jacked up my credit score. I used to have a good score but when Mr. Fight got canned, I STOPPED PAYING ALL MY CREDIT CARD BILLS! Oh my god right? I am such a freaking low life dead beat. So gross. The truth was, I didn't have the money! Who'd have thought!? After we went down to one (meager) income, it was us and the cats being homeless or paying the credit card bills, so I made my choice. I figured that when he got a job again, I'd do that debt consolidation whatever. Until then, I haven't heard much about debtor's prison lately so hopefully, I'm cool.

On the upside: I love my husband. I love my family. I love my cats. I love my home (so I hope I get to keep it).

Here's looking at you 2009!

There's more where that came from!

I thought I'd take a minute and add some follow up pictures to the crochet stuff I put up last week. I gave most of this stuff away, so I'm happy to have photographed my first baby steps in crochet.

Mr. Fight was super bummed that his Christmas present didn't show up before Christmas, even though I was a good girl and ordered it on December 4, so I made him a little gift. (He wanted a custom made football scarf from Germany. I guess 3 weeks to make and ship the scarf wasn't cutting it.) He requested a small bag, a "stash bag" one could say. These were totally easy to make. I found the pattern on Ravelry and it comes from Priscilla's Crochet. They are actually eyeglass cases:

This is the One Skein Scarf I made for my momma. The pattern is by Denise Cozzitorto and was published in Stitch'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker:

This is what I made for my little brother. The pattern was a challenge, especially since I wasn't paying close enough attention to counting my stitches. I was watching TV with Mr. Fight and he kept talking and I wanted to say, "Can't you see I'm counting!!!!! I am crocheting on a deadline! I just learned how to do this! I am not a machine!" but I didn't. Instead the reaper is a little wonky. So be it.

It is from the book Creepy Cute Crochet, by Christen Haden:

And lastly, my work in progress. I am making a bag that is big enough to carry files in, a book, a crochet project, whatever. I found this "Easy Peasy Crocheted Bag" on Laughing Purple Goldfish's blog.

Cheers!

I love crochet!

Ok, so I mentioned that I was going to learn how to crochet, well, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! I am absloutly nuts about crochet! I freakin' love it.

The first thing I made was basically a raggity rectangle of single crochet that was all lopsided and missing many stitches. I tied it off and threw it in my bag as a reminder of my first crochet baby steps! Then I decided to try out a fresh ball of a yarn and a new stitch. I decided to try double crochet (love!) and I stitched about 14 rows with nice and soft (but nice and cheap) Caron Simply Soft. I then felt comfortable with that stitch and it was looking pretty good, with the same amount of stitches in each row, 14 rows later. Nice. It was on to triple crochet. I did about 7 rows of triple crochet and realized I preferred making the doubles better. However, at this point I had decided that this was to be a scarf, so I had to figure out some kind of plan. I decided to leave my 14 rows of double and 7 rows of triple and start switching back and forth between the two for the length of the scarf. So I did double-triple-double-triple until it was almost as long as I wanted. Then I finished her off with 7 rows of triple and 14 rows of double crochet to make it match the beginning. At this point I could have stopped but I was feeling like the scarf needed a little more "pizzazz". So I broke out the shell stitch with the black Simply Soft! Oh yeah! (Picture me saying that like Peggy Hill.)

Here it is on my desk:

There's no stopping me! Then I did a little circle to learn how to crochet with increasing and decreasing stitches:

Here's another: So I decided to put this to good use and make some Christmas presents for my family since I did take the Handmade pledge this year. (See link button in sidebar.)

I only have one thing left to make, and that's something for my father, which will be a scarf. I made stuff for my little brother and mom that I don't have pictures of yet, but I do have the scarf that I made for my sister. This is based on a design by Mermaiden on Ravelry.

When you roll it up IT LOOKS LIKE SUSHI! Bwahhhhhahahaha!

On the Homefront

Well, things could be better. I haven't posted anything yet about the shit storm that is my personal life, but here's a little taste. I work for peanuts and my husband has been out of work since March. I've been paying to keep up his health insurance since he has expensive medical issues, specifically crippling anxiety and depression (which is why he's currently out of work). I found out last week that Mr. Fight's health insurance got cancelled because I paid the bill too late. Well, I paid the bill too late because my husband doesn't have a job and I'm trying to keep us not homeless and I just did not have the money. Bummer. The real pisser is that all the stuff I have to pay for now without the insurance costs MORE than the money I didn't have to pay for the insurance. Grrr....

On the bright side, normally it's a chore to hide all the gaps in my husband's employment history when I update his resume, but at least this time the economy being in the toilet sort of helps cover his tracks. He's not like some low-life who doesn't want to work, he just has a hard time keeping jobs. He gets all worked up over something or another going on in his life or at home and he wants to call out of work because he's so overwhelmed with whatever. Then he's all freaked out that everyone at work is talking about what a loser he is for calling out, which makes him afraid to go back, so he calls out for a week or more, ultimately ending in him getting canned. That's pretty much the cycle. It's hard.

Right now he is looking for a job, but there is really nothing in the paper. He's been looking since August or so. After he got fired this last time in March, I told him to take some time, go to the doctor and try to get a little bit of control back in his life. He's been on every anxiety/depression medication I've ever heard of and none of it seems to help him. What happens is, he feels like shit so he goes to the doctor and they say, "Maybe we should try something else".

Then he has to take the new pills for however long it takes for them to kick in and for him to get used to them. Then he doesn't know how he feels because he can't tell if his body is still getting used to the pills, or the dose isn't right or the combination isn't right. All he knows is that he never feels good. It's not that he wants to feel happy all the time, it's just that he wants to feel not overwhelmed by feelings of being a total failure and obsessing over ever tiny thing that is going bad in his life. I can't imagine how hard it must be for him to be so miserable all the time. I mean, I'm certainly not happy with where I am in life and certainly thought I'd have made something better of myself, but I'm not so consumed by these thoughts that I just can't get up and function. I get up and go to work because someone has to.

He has some breakdown along the way where he can't "suck it up" and look at the big picture. The consequences of his actions aren't what's important to him in that moment, it's not doing whatever the next thing is he would have to do-like go to work or to a family party. He just wants to curl up in a little funk and not leave the house, see people, go to the store, anything. He goes on like this for months until someone (him or the doctor) finally says, "Maybe we should try something else."