Holiday Fun

I had my own Festivus Pole at work this year.


Unfortunately I didn't buy one, with a nice base. This was just an, umm, Festivus Pole that we found in the workshop that we didn't know we had. Yeah. That's it. So I had to prop it up with a stepstool. But I was pretty excited. It cheered me up every time I looked at it.

Christmas Eve at the Office From Hell was another story. Our boss had initially told us we could leave early on Christmas Eve, but only if we made up our time in the next week. In other words, if we wanted to leave at 2:00 p.m., we'd owe him three hours of make-up time sometime in the next week.

Well. Can we say "Ebenezer"? I've never grumbled (too much) about working Christmas Eve, as I always have, I'm used to it. But we always used to get to go home early with no strings attached. So this new twist was kind of a bummer.

My co-worker and I decided to have a bit of silent protest. We got these name tags (I forgot to buy any, but found a place online to easily print them right on to the same Avery labels we use for everything else in our office ... it's almost like they knew ... ). Here's mine.



(That's stuck overtop of a skull and cross-bones because the only red shirt I had to wear was one that said "I LOVE PIRATES" ... so that's what I wore to work today, with my green cardigan ... just call me Ms. Christmas).

Anyway, my co-worker's name tag said "Hello, my name is BOB CRATCHIT."

Ironically (maybe the ghost of Christmas Future paid a visit?), just as we were patting our labels into place, our boss came in and said he'd changed his mind, we were all going home at 1:00, and no one had to make up the time.

Hmmm. (He hadn't seen the labels, so that's not why). (Unless he heard us talking about it, which is possible).

Anyway, that's been my holiday fun and giggles for the last two days. Now I'm done with that place till Monday (wooo-hooooo), I'm done wrapping presents, I have one more Christmas-y thing to do, then I'm going to go sit down and work on that baby blanket in the beautiful Captain's Parlor ... have I posted this yet? I'm thrilled with my Christmas-y, Victorianesque living room. (That last thing I have to do is put up the pine garland along the mantle, which I have procrastinated about as long as I can, seeing as it's Christmas Eve ... but it will be up there at least for tonight and tomorrow).

It's here!

Happy Festivus!

Baby blanket progress

Progress on the first baby blanket ...


... and I'm having a blast with it. I can't believe how much I missed knitting, or figure out why it took me so long to get back to it. Well, yeah, okay - that part I kind of get. With the chaos that was The Move, I'd pretty much lost track of it all.

But regardless, the obsession is back, and it's fantastic. I noticed, though, that this blanket was knitting up a lot more 'solid' and firm than the one I made for us, and then I figured out why. The yarn calls for a size 8 needle, and I believe that's what I used for ours. But when I started this one, for no reason I can figure, I simply went and got my bamboo size 6 circular, and started it. Well, you can knit this yarn on a size 6, but it gives it a pretty solid construction. Not as drapey and 'flow-y' as ours.

I debated on frogging it and starting over on the larger needles, but decided not to. It is a baby blanket, which I'm hoping will be used for at least the first several years of the kid's life - sturdy enough to toss in the car for travel, or throw on the ground for play. So perhaps being a little more 'solid' will be a good thing.

Although for the next one I may try a size 7 and see if I like it better.

Speaking of knitting, I found the most awesome knitting website ... Ravelry. It's hard to explain and would only interest a knitter, but if you happen to be one, check it out.

Okay, I'm cheating ... better get back to work.

Holy Cow, There's Knitting Happening.

Yes, it's shocking, I know. But I actually knit something today.

Those of you who have been here for awhile know that this blog started almost exclusively as a knitting blog. But then I branched out into other things, and then at some point last year I quit knitting entirely. Not for lack of interest, but too much other stuff going on, with the house hunting and buying and whatnot. Since we moved in I haven't even known where most of my knitting stuff was, and have had little time to work on such projects.

I'd been thinking for awhile that I was jonesing for some knitting, so this weekend I dug out a project - the sweater I'd started a year and a half ago.


The good news is, I was able to pick up right where I left off, with no problem.

The bad news is, in the basket in which this project was located, there are only two additional skeins of the yarn. Yet I have more than half the back of the sweater, and two sleeves, to go. Now, I know I ordered more than enough yarn for this project way back when. I probably stashed the rest of it, and only kept a few skeins in the basket, handy. Problem is, I have no idea where the rest of it is. We've unpacked most everything, or at least moved it around enough till I have a good idea where most things are. And I am not aware of any boxes or totes or anything else, that has a yarn stash in it which includes that project yarn.

So, since I'm concerned it somehow got lost in the move, I'm hesitant to put too much more time into that sweater till I find the yarn. Because I know those two skeins aren't enough to finish it, and I know I can't order more, almost two years later, and have it match.

But that's not too big an issue at the moment, because I have some more pressing projects. Greg's got 3 siblings all going to present him with nephews (or possibly a niece) in the next 6 or 7 months. I've decided they all need knitted baby blankets.

You may remember the log cabin blanket. Well, I had so damned much fun knitting that project, that I decided it would be a great format for baby blankets. I used to gravitate to the frilly, lacy, specialty-stitched baby blankets. But Greg pointed out something very useful to me - having had two kids, he said those lacy baby blankets are actually kind of a pain because babies' fingers and toes tend to get caught up in them, annoyingly.

Besides, I wanted something durable and long-lived and really useful. So I decided - and he wholeheartedly agreed - that a log cabin baby blanket would be the bomb, as it's about indestructible. It can be used for a crib blanket, car seat blanket, thrown on the ground (or in the sand at the beach, as they all live in North Carolina), used and abused, and washed and dried, and turn out looking better than when it started.

And since they're so dang fun to knit, I said, that'll work. So today I went out and bought some yarn to start the first baby blanket.



I hadn't knitted in so long (well over a year) that I was afraid I had actually forgotten how. It turned out to be like riding a bike ... no problems. When I had to cast on for the blanket, as I was thinking about it, I was thinking, "I don't remember how to do this," and thought I was going to have to go find my knitting books to look it up. But as soon as I picked up the yarn in my hand, it all came back to me. Beautiful!

So, I started the blanket today, and I am beyond thrilled. This is wonderful, to be doing this again. And log cabin blankets are the best, especially when you're out of practice, because it's just straight knitting, and very little counting - in fact, no counting while you're knitting if you don't want to ... you just have to occasionally count rows after the fact. (And even that isn't that big a deal, as the pattern still works fine if you make too many or too few rows).

I'm pretty psyched to be back to knitting.

Oh no. Insomnia.

I don't get this often, but this feels like one of those nights. So I thought I'd do a blog update.

We've been crazy busy through the beginning of the holiday season. Funny, I'd heard about that, but never really experienced it.

Greg's mom, step-dad and grandmother were here, and spent the night, for Thanksgiving. We also had a couple other guests as well, so that caused a flurry of finding places for everyone to sleep, and finding and washing blankets for everyone. We have blankets all over the house, but they haven't all been sorted and washed since moving. And though it's a big house, we only technically have one spare bedroom, so when there are multiple people, places still must be arranged.

Then we got busy hauling out the Christmas decorations, sorting out what we had and what we needed, and figuring out what we wanted to put where. It's not as cut and dried as one might think. This is (I've mentioned before) a big ass house, and there are far more areas to decorate than there were at the old house. We don't have nearly enough decorations, but we already spent a ton of money on outdoor lights, so gathering up the nice decorations for the rest of the house will have to be done a little at a time over the next few years.

We bought a ton of multi-colored lights to string in the shrubs out front. But we wanted LEDs because they are so easy on the electric bill. Well, the entire front shrubbery filled with multi-colored LEDs was horrendous. It looked like a carnival attraction. I couldn't stand it, and went out the next day and took them all down. Then we went out (again) and bought a bunch of plain white LEDs. Greg ended up putting the second batch up, and he creatively combined the white ones with just a few touches of the multi-color ones, and it looks much better. Those LEDs are still ungodly bright, which I suppose should be a good thing, but I don't know ... I'm used to the more muted shades of Christmas, the soft glow of Christmas lights - not a jittery glare that would induce seizures in an epileptic.

I would have returned all the multi-colored lights, except that I knew I'd never get them back in their stupid boxes, and I'd ripped up the little packages of spare bulbs that were attached to each string, so I couldn't return them in "as bought" condition ... had it only been one or two boxes I'd have probably tried, but we had six boxes of them. We decided to keep them and use them in other places around the house. Some landed up in the Imaginarium, some in the pub. Next year we'll probably put them on the downstairs tree.

Oh, yeah - we wanted two trees, one in the pub, and one in the living room / parlor. But we only had one tree from the old house. Fortunately, the former owners left a very, very large Christmas tree here when they cleaned the place out. I was grateful, as it's a very nice tree, and looks fantastic in the parlor. They also very kindly left the lights that went on it - one giant string the geniuses had spliced together, so that all the lights for this one tree are all there on one string - ergo, only one plug! Well, I say genius now, because they all still work. When sections of them stop working, then I won't be so thrilled, but for this year, kudos.

I've even managed to get some Christmas shopping done, and not just online. Yes, I actually went into stores and bought things for people. I haven't done that in so many years, I forgot what it was like. But it was kind of fun. I'm not done yet, but I'm probably about half done, which is a miracle for me this early. In the past few years I've been ordering all my Christmas presents online, but unfortunately my procrastination genes have kept me from starting until about December 18th, causing me to have to pay exorbitant shipping to get the stuff by Christmas. So far I've placed two orders with standard shipping, and should be fine.

And the holiday rush is far from over ... we have Greg's birthday party this weekend, and then we'll probably have a free weekend, and then Christmas, and then something for New Year's. Yep, it's going to be a busy month.

I've been doing some more work on the Imaginarium too! I'm way psyched. I'll have to post pictures when it's finally done, which it almost is. I did some more painting, and got a new bookcase.

Now that I'm actually starting to make real progress up here, I am totally loving it, and can't wait to do more. I'm really excited about working on the bathroom, partly because it's such a small room so I can do a lot for little expense, meaning I can let my creativity go wild; and partly because it's probably the most outdated and relatively kind of ugly room up here, so will benefit so much more from even a little attention.

I'm also psyched about starting to work in the kitchen area, which is kind of the guts of the whole Imaginarium. It's the area where all my crafty stuff is stored, and my work area. I have some preliminary ideas ... swapping out the ceiling light fixture with some track lighting; painting the cabinet doors; and replacing the knobs.

That's a start. Eventually I'd like to paint the countertop. I've been reading up on that, and looking at pictures online, and apparently, if you're careful and do it right, you can make a crappy old countertop look pretty astounding. I haven't yet figured out exactly how I want to do that, so I'll work on other things I'm more sure about first. Having a crappy old countertop isn't really such a bad thing, anyway, because I don't worry so much about messing it up or damaging it when I'm working on a project.

Hopefully one day soon I'll have things organized enough to actually use the space for something crafty. It's been forever since I made anything, or did any knitting (as of right now I think I forgot how, but I'm hopeful that when I try again, it'll come back to me). I miss it, and want to finally get back to that side of things, as well.

Okay, I guess that's enough rambling from me. I'd better go try to get some sleep.

An Imaginarium Project

There was this strange little cubby up in the Imaginarium, almost like a mini closet with no door.




I had an idea for something I wanted to do with it - I wanted to put little shelves in it, and use it for storing some of my stuff. With Greg's help, I devised a plan of using small pieces of wood for shelf supports, then just laying the shelves across those.

He cut all the pieces for me, and I set about screwing them into the wall - the walls are plaster, and nailing anything in is an excercise in futility, so we settled on this as the best way to go.





It worked great, though I'll tell you, those supports wouldn't come out without ripping the wall apart. They aren't going anywhere.

Then I stained the shelves ...



Then I painted the inside of the cubby, and a bit of angst set in. I'd decided on what I hoped was a lightish shade of purple, and I bought a whole gallon of it, knowing I'd want to use it in other places. But when I painted the cubby, it was a bit too dark.

I didn't want to take it back to the store to have it lightened, because I'd only have basically one shot to get it right. They'd show it to me in the can, I'd have to guess whether that was a good shade or not (something that never works well for me), bring it home, and if it still wasn't right, I'd be stuck.

I'd read online that the easiest way to lighten dark paint was to just buy white, and add the dark to it until you get a shade you like. I thought, that actually sounds like a better idea ... I could use the white and some canning jars I have to mix up various shades from this one gallon of purple and have a lot of options for my Imaginarium decor. So I started one batch, testing colors on a scrap piece of lumber until I got one I liked.

Then, instead of just repainting the entire cubby, I 'pounced' the lighter color on. Kind of like sponge painting, except since I'd forgotten to pick up a sponge anywhere, I just used a rag (but didn't 'roll' it - just pounced it).

It turned out absolutely fantastic. I couldn't be happier with it. These pictures don't quite do the colors or patterning justice, but they're the best I could get. The patterning is really awesome because the colors blend so well, it's very subtle, almost like suede or something. Just really cool.






One thing I'm especially pleased with is how, at the edge on one side, I blended the pouncing into solid color, just because I wanted a more finished look, and didn't want the pouncing all the way to the corner edge.



So yeah, I'm pretty happy with this. I'm planning to install a rod and hang a curtain in front of it, in part to keep out dust, but I haven't gotten to that part yet, and I'm still enjoying admiring my painting job.

The Imaginarium is very drab, color-wise ... off-white walls, olive-ish green carpet, dark brown wood trim and cabinets. I plan to drastically change that over time, and this project is the first step in that direction ... it's now a tiny little color oasis in a sea of drab, but it's inspired me as to how great the whole area is going to look once I get some of my other ideas completed. Well, with it getting into winter now, I plan to spend a lot of time working on this in the coming months.

Tyler - Great News!

Tyler's blood test results were beautiful. All his values were well within the reference range of acceptable values.

Most importantly, the indicators of kidney function - BUN (blood urea nitrogen) and creatinine -had dropped significantly.

The normal reference range on creatinine is .5 to 2.0. In May Tyler's was 2.1, which they flagged as high, and indicative of already advanced kidney dysfunction. This is because kidneys are so good at compensating for loss of function that 'bad' test results don't begin to show up until the kidneys have already lost 70% to 80% of their function - a disturbing thing, but one I've not only been told by the vet, but read numerous times.

The normal reference range on BUN is 8 to 30. In May Tyler's was 29, which when coupled with his high creatinine reading, they said confirmed early kidney disease.

But his creatining reading this time was 1.7, and his BUN was 26.

All because instead of rolling over and putting him on the prescription low-protein diet, as they recommended, and "enjoying our time left," I did the research, and devised a home-cooked diet for him that follows current research instead of outmoded mythology: moderate (not low) protein, and low phosphorous, together with some useful supplements (fish oil and CoQ10).

Okay, I'm not claiming I've permanently cured him and this will never again be an issue. It may creep back up, especially in light of the fact that once the numbers go up at all, it indicates significant kidney damage. And more adjustments may be needed.

But get this. Tyler's 15 years old. I don't expect to make him immortal, but every bit of additional time I can not only have him, but have him healthy and happy, is a big bonus to us. Just throwing him on low-protein diet and forgetting about it was a guarantee to watch his condition slowly but steadily deteriorate.

This way, for now at least, his numbers have dropped far enough back into the normal range that it isn't even an issue at the moment. That doesn't mean he can go back on the 'old' diet. That means this diet's working, and he's going to stay on it. And it also means I bought us some more time for Tyler to be doing well and feeling good. Because even with the apparent kidney damage (due probably just to his age, not any particular 'disease' condition), if this diet can have his numbers in the normal range, then that means that the kidneys are doing what they do so well - more than compensating for the loss of function, and keeping his levels in an acceptable range.

And that is worth every second of research I had to do on my own, and every second of devising those diet plans for him, instead of rolling over and buying the 'prescription' diet because it was 'easier.'

(It's not cheaper, either -that stuff is expensive - but this home-cooked diet is not, since it only requires white rice, eggs, cottage cheese, and a few veggies).

So I'm really happy at the moment. I know that some day his numbers may begin to creep up again, and more adjustments will have to be made, but guess what - it ain't right now, so I'm happy. And so is Tyler.

2012: I Can't Take It Anymore

The History Channel's end-times programming has finally pushed me over the edge. Why do I watch it? It used to be interesting. I've always been interested in post-apocalyptic worlds (for reasons I'll go into another time).

But they took something mildly interesting, and blew it all so far out of proportion that it's become downright ludicrous.

Why am I picking on the History Channel? Because they have the biggest track record of throwing these types of shows together, often it seems from absolute cheesecloth (full of holes), and presenting it in as serious and 'scholarly' a way as they can manufacture. No, they're not the only ones - but they are one of the worst, in my opinion.

So to put some perspective on it, I found an article that I think is the best information I've read so far on 2012. I provide you a link to it so you, too, can know the truth.

Moving On ...

I can't dwell on that mess with the robbing, lying thief anymore. So I'll post something more positive.

Today was awesome! The weather was beautiful, sunny and in the 60s. We finished up almost all the leaves in the front yard. There's just a few around some shrubs in my dining room garden area, and on the far side of the driveway. But tomorrow's supposed to be sunny and in the 60s again, so we can get back out there and do the last of it then. But the worst of it's done - two huge piles that were in the front yard. I'm really glad we got some late-season good weather to finish that up.

I got to take Tyler for two nice walks today, which he always enjoys. He had a vet checkup today, and blood work - to check his kidney function. After last time, I did about a month's worth of research, till my head was spinning and I couldn't take it anymore. I'd finally devised a diet for him I thought would be okay, but as the months have gone by I've been less and less happy with this current diet. No reason in particular, just ... not too happy. So I'm waiting to see what his blood test results are (will get them Monday). Hopefully, hopefully, his numbers will have come down - which will tell me this diet was, after all, working. If there's any other change, then I'm going to be changing his diet, although I don't know in what way yet. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

But the vet said Tyler seemed to be doing well, he commented on his strong, slow heartrate - a good thing, usually seen in more athletic animals. I have been taking Tyler for more and longer walks lately. Maybe that helped. And Tyler himself seemed to have a very good day - seemed in a good mood, enjoyed his outings and spending time in the yard. (The vet trip was stressful, but he bounced back nicely).

And, I started on my first real Imaginarium project. There's a small cubby in this one wall, sort of like a tiny closet with no shelves or door. I've decided to turn it into just that - a small closet with shelves, and not a door, but probably a decorative curtain covering it. I bought all the supplies last weekend - 1x6 for shelves (cut at the Home Despot where I bought it), stain, paint, etc. Today I begain staining the shelves.

They're not turning out quite as I envisioned, yet. The stain was lighter than I thought, and isn't going on particularly well. So I just put a second coat on, and it's starting to look better. They'll probably need one more, and if I'm still not getting what I want, I may look into getting a darker color (I assume I can stain a darker color over a lighter color, if I haven't polyurethaned them yet). But I'd really prefer just to get what I have to work - this project cost way more than I thought it was going to as it was (and I'm not really done yet, as I don't have the material for the curtain or anything for a rod to hang it from yet).

Tomorrow I'll get the support pieces cut, and work on starting to get them installed. Then I can paint (and continue to work on the shelves). Once the supports are installed and everything's painted, it's just a matter of slipping the shelves onto the supports, and hanging the curtain.

I'm excited ... my first Imaginarium project, thought up entirely by me, and put into motion. I hope I can finish it tomorrow (though that's going to be tricky what with needing paint and stain to dry, etc). When it's done, I'll post pictures.

On that note, I think I'm ready to go crawl into bed and read for awhile before a good night's sleep, and sleeping in tomorrow.

A Tale Of Lies and Theft

Here's what happens when you push an otherwise easygoing, sympathetic kind of person too far.
In September we hired a guy to do some work at the house - specifically, to re-insulate the walls and ceiling of the Imaginarium, as it's under-insulated and was pretty cold up there last winter. He quoted us a price, and wanted half down to buy supplies, preferably in cash. That's not an uncommon request from the individual handyman/contractor types, so I gave him the $1,100 in cash, and got a receipt.

He was supposed to start the work that weekend, September 19. But he never did it, and every weekend that he didn't show up, he had some new excuse why he couldn't do it that week. Except I began to get suspicious back in October when this had gone on for a month, and his excuses were starting to sound more and more like - well, just that - lame excuses, not legitimate reasons.

He was referred to us by the real estate agent we used when we bought this house, so I got hold of her to tell her what was going on. She contacted him, and initially told us that he was having some health problems that he hadn't wanted anyone to know about ('he's a private person' she said - we'll see why in a minute). Although I sympathized with his having health problems, I said "When you're holding $1,100 of someone's money and not doing the work, they kind of have a right to know the truth. If he didn't want to tell us, he should have simply said he couldn't do the work and returned our money." She agreed, but suggested we give him a few more weeks, at which time he'd told her he was confident he'd be able to complete the job.

Two more weeks went by, and we called him again this Monday. He didn't answer, but left a message back for us that he was still sick, but getting better, and anticipated doing the work in another couple weeks.

I tried to call him twice the next day, but just kept getting his voice mail. I was fed up and wanted my boss (an attorney) to send him a stern letter just telling him we wanted our money back. Problem was, no one had his address. I'd only ever had his phone number, and when he wrote out the receipt for taking our money, it wasn't on a business invoice or anything - just a plain white piece of paper. The real estate agent didn't have his address either.

I decided to do some research online to see if I could turn up a business address for him. After a lengthy search, I did find him - not in any place I expected to find him - in a local court system's online docket, with a string of traffic and criminal charges two pages long.

Turns out he'd had so many charges of driving with a suspended license that they'd permanently revoked it - three days after I paid him to do the work. And it was suspended even before they did that, so he knew when he came to my house, took my money, and agreed to do this work, that he didn't even have a valid driver's license to be driving around on. (He also had no insurance on his truck, as a side note - one of the charges was about that - which means there's a chance his truck may have even been impounded when he got that last charge).

He's also on probation for a felony burglary charge from last year. Which had nothing directly to do with my situation, except that (a) he's apparently proven himself capable of robbing people, and (b) being on probation, he should be even less willing to continue to break the law, as that puts him in serious danger of having his probation revoked and sending him to prison on that original burglary charge.

By the time I found all this out, Wednesday of this week, I was - well, seriously concerned wouldn't be putting it too strongly.

My boss recommended I tell him he's got one week to return my money, or I'm filing felony theft charges against him (a prospect that should have gotten his attention, as I said, another felony charge now will cause his probation to be revoked). I called him, got his voice mail (of course - he quit answering phone calls from us quite some time ago), and left that message. I also told the real estate agent what was going on, and she called him, too, and left him a stern message telling him he'd better pony up and do the right thing. (She was, by the way, mortified at this turn of events, and felt really bad for referring us to him in the first place, then encouraging us to trust him back in October - but it's not her fault, she didn't know any of this either).

A few hours later my real estate agent got a call from a friend of the guy - he wouldn't even call himself - with a message for me, which was: (a) he's pretty well hit rock bottom and doesn't care anymore, so if I file criminal charges on him, he's just going to run, and we'll never find him, and I'll never get anything out of it; (b) he spent the money, it's gone, so he doesn't even have it to give back to me; and (c) but if I'd be willing to not file charges he'd be willing to make payments to me till it was paid back.

Okay, really? First of all, this guy lied to me for two months, so why in God's name am I going to trust him now to make payments? Second of all, he now has no source of income whatsoever. The only truth he told in all this was that he is having health problems, so he hasn't been working for months, and has no other source of income. He's now wrecked his local reputation (a large portion of his business came from referrals from local real estate agents, and when this happened, a mass bulletin was sent out telling them all not to refer him anymore, so he lost his reputation and a large chunk of his potential business referrals over this), besides which he has no driver's license and maybe no truck - so he has little chance of continuing to generate enough work in this area to earn enough money to both live on, and pay me anything reasonable. And lastly, I don't want stupid payments - I need the money back so I can hire somone else to do this work. That's the other part of all this - it's still freezing in my upstairs, and we're still wasting money on heating costs, because the insulation work didn't get done, and I gave this thief the money I had to do it with, which it took us all summer to save up.

I wrote the friend an email (it's someone I know too, ironically), and my boss called both the friend and the guy who robbed me, and left a message with no room for doubt. He's been advised that I will not accept anything but the return of my entire $1,100, in cash, the way I gave it to him. And if I don't have it in my hand in one week, I'm going to contact his probation officer and tell them what happened (which will result in the revocation of his probation and, as I mentioned, probably eventually prison time), and then I'm going to file felony theft charges against him, which under the circumstances might also carry jail time, since it's now his second felony offense.

We gave the guy a week to get the money, because there's a slim chance that maybe, to keep himself out of prison, he can find someone - some relative or someone - who can loan him the money. Maybe I'll get at least part of my money back, which would be wonderful. Because otherwise, I'm out $1,100, end of story. If he doesn't come up with it, and I proceed (which I will), there's no chance then of ever getting it. Even if the court ordered him to pay restitution, he's got nothing - he's apparently destitute, he won't be working if he goes to jail, even out of jail he's got little chance of working again around here. He also has a civil judgment lien against him from a company in Pennsylvania from 6 or 7 years ago, so they'd get first crack at any asset he did have. He has nothing and no means to pay me back. I'll never see that money again, unless this last ditch effort works, and someone feels sorry for him and loans him the money.

Do I think it likely? No. But I figured it was worth a shot.

When my boss talked to the friend, the friend denied that this guy was going to run, to leave the state. But that is what he threatened the night before. I decided it was a chance worth taking, because he's not smart enough to go create a whole new identity for himself and start life over somewhere else. He'll get caught eventually.

And I am so pissed off about this. It's bad enough he lied to us for weeks on end, but I think what galls me the worst are two things - first, his cavalier attitude in having his friend tell me "Yeah, I spent your money, it's gone, and there's nothing you can do about it." And second, the fact that even as recently as this week he was still just blatantly lying to us, when he left the message saying he was planning to start the work in a couple weeks. He knew damned well he wasn't going to do this work, because he'd already spent the money - and hadn't bought any of the supplies necessary to do the work, which is in part what the cash advance was for. He had no money of his own with which to buy the stuff to cover his theft, and I sure as hell wasn't giving him any more money - he wasn't to get the rest of his payment until the work was done.

So he had no way to do the work, and he knew this, yet he still sat there and promised me he'd be doing it in a couple weeks.

He wants to try to get us to believe that he's really a good guy, and he's just down on his luck, rotten ex-wife took him to the cleaners in his divorce a few years ago, his health is wrecked from stress, but he really wants to make good on this ... while he blithely went out and spent MY money, then lied to me about it.

Life's full of disappointments, and people do unscrupulous things all the time - but I'm about as pissed off at this guy as I've ever been at anyone. Despite what a temper I can have, I'm usually actually a pretty easy sell for a hard luck story. If this had only involved a hundred dollars or so, I'd probably figure the guy had made enough of a wreck of his life that he didn't need me piling more grief on top of it, and I'd probably just write it off and walk away.

But for $1,100? And such blatant flat-out thievery and lying to me? No. He just crossed the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong way. I'll stop at nothing (legally) to hound this guy until I get whatever I can get out this - if not any of my money back, I'll at least make sure that he gets whatever punishment the courts find suitable under the circumstances ... and if he does run, I'll make sure he gets found. He's going to wish to hell he'd never heard of me, and I'm sure the grief I'm going to make sure he gets wasn't worth $1,100. I hope he enjoyed it, because he's definitely going to pay for it, one way or the other. (by legal means, of course)

Halloween 2009

Our first Halloween in the new house was fun. The Dread Reverend has plans for really decorating the place up over the coming years (and I'm getting psyched about helping, too - all the holidays are becoming fun again in the new house ...), so for our first year he began to put his plans in place. He decorated up the front yard pretty nice this year.





It's hard to see in the picture, but those are pirates hanging from the rope, with a sign that says 'Pirates Ye Be Warned.' Although later, since we are all pirates, I said maybe having hanging pirates in our front yard isn't the best thing for us ... seems kind of disloyal. So we might think of something else next year.

Then he made a spooky 'soundtrack' to play during trick-or-treat. It was very well done - he did all the sound effects himself, and it was really creepy! The background was a constant sound of a creaking ship, with all kinds of other sounds cycling through - creepy sayings, discordant music, a few random screams and yells. Really good!

The Dread Reverend and Paddy dressed up to pass out candy. (I dressed up a little, too - wore my pirate coat, anyway). Even Tyler wanted to get in on the fun.





We didn't have nearly as many trick-or-treaters as we'd thought we might, so we have tons of candy left over. But that's okay ... it's not like it'll go to waste, and I'd rather have too much than run out.

There was one truly scary thing that happened, and not in that Halloween fun kinda way. We had the leftover candy in the dining room, but on one of the chairs instead of on the table. We decided to run out for a few minutes to stop by a friend's house a few blocks away, and to stop in the local mini-mart for cigarettes. When we got back, the first sight that greeted me was Tyler snuffling through shredded candy wrappers on the floor around him. Holy cow ... he'd gotten into the candy. And chocolate is toxic to dogs!

After an initial moment of panic (and being really, extremely pissed at myself for leaving chocolate where he could get to it, when I'm usually so very careful about those kinds of things!), I went through the wrappers and figured out that he'd eaten two Reese's Peanut Butter Cups candy bars - not two cups, two whole candy bars, four cups. But, since they are mostly peanut butter with just a thin chocolate coating, I talked it over with the Dread Reverend, and we agreed that he got only a minimal amount of chocolate, and he would probably be fine.

He ate almost an entire bag of chocolate covered peanuts one time years ago, and I called the vet to ask about it - but they told me since it was actually a very small amount of chocolate on each peanut, it wouldn't hurt him, and the worst that would probably happen would be a stomach ache from the peanuts.

Tyler did drink an awful lot of water last night, and his stomach was growling loudly for awhile, but otherwise he seems fine. If he had eaten any more, or any other kind that was more solidly chocolate, I'd have panicked and had him at the emergency vet's ... but fortunately for us, he loves peanut butter, and picked those Reese's cups out of a wide variety of other candy bars. So I think he'll be fine.

And I capped off the night with a nice, Halloween-y fire in the Captain's Parlour. Really beautiful!

Samhain Weekend

I don't know where this month went. I came back from vacation, and that's about the last thing I clearly recall.

Well, some work got done around the house. The three walls we initially intended to paint in the dining room are finally done. I said it that way because we were not going to paint the fourth wall, the one that's the outside wall with the door and window. The old rather cheap-looking paneling that covered the entire room, was paneled over on this one wall with nicer, richer looking paneling that wasn't actually so bad. So we thought we'd try leaving it. So far I'm not too keen on how it looks, but I won't be able to judge for sure until we get more done in there - the proper curtains put up, the molding painted and installed, stuff like that. Once the room's more 'done' I'll be able to judge whether that one dark wood wall looks silly or is okay.

I've had several fires in the upstairs "Captain's Parlor" fireplace this month! It's great, because it's the first time we've had fires in that fireplace since we moved in. It's working grand - and that room looks absolutely gorgeous with a fire in the fireplace.

Spent two days raking and chopping up leaves, and the entire front yard and walkway and porch is covered again. Having those two beautiful maple trees in the front yard is wonderful year-round ... except for that is an awful lot of leaves. Next year I think we have to come up with a better, more efficient way to deal with them all.

But now - sadly - all the leaves are down, there will be no more ... so once I get the existing ones cleaned up, we're done till next year. I've left them so far, because I liked the look of the beautiful, bright maple leaves for Halloween. But after this weekend, they're going to need to go.

Speaking of Halloween, our yard is all decorated for this weekend, and we'll be handing out candy for the first time in our new house. I hope we got enough - we don't know how many trick-or-treaters to expect for sure, although we have a rough idea from a friend who lives in the neighborhood. So, we shall see.

And I've been doing a little work in the Imaginarium, though there's much yet to be done. But I've been spending a ton of time up there, like all the time anymore. It's great to finally get to be using it so much. It's starting to feel homey and comfortable, and the more time I spend there, the more ideas I get for fixing it up.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. Just a sort of quieting down and snuggling in for the coming winter, I guess. Appropriate to the season, anyway. But I thought I'd check in before it looked as if I'd abandoned the place.

Okay, I Guess I'm Back

It's been a strange week. Initially I was in denial I was back from vacation, but the definitive lack of water out my front door finally convinced me.

Then things just got busy. But now I'm finally posting some more vacation pictures.

Tyler

This looks goofier than it did in real life ... Tyler was actually playing, jumping around and racing back and forth on the deck. It was a beautiful thing, even if this picture is just silly. I mean, the Poo will be 15 years old next month ... I had to capture this moment. (smile)


Tyler loved the deck, especially the dune walk-over ... because this deck was completely enclosed and dog-safe, so he didn't have to be tied up. He could run free (as much as a dog can on a deck). It's the most freedom he's had since we moved to the new house (with no fenced-in yard). He sometimes just went and ran up and down this part of the deck.

Pelicans (but no Laurels) (ha ha)

Miscellaneous Fun Stuff

Greg body-boarding.


Me and Greg's brother, Bo.


Shrimp boat. Bubba Gump? Could be.

Found at the North Carolina Maritime Museum.

Our ledge.

When we got to the beach, there was this 4 foot drop-off down by the water. We'd never seen anything like it before, and after asking around, it's not very common, though it happens from time to time. Apparently there'd been a bad storm the day before we got there, and it had eroded this huge section of the beach. It generally fixes itself. During the week it grew shorter and taller as the tides came and went. But by the time we left it had been reduced to only a foot or two, and looked to be correcting itself slowly but surely.

A storm at sea ... I loved how you could see the rain.

Sad.


A fisherman just up the beach from us had caught this little shark. He decided to use it for bait, so tossed it aside and let it die. Then he changed his mind and never cut it up. I was sad that he killed it, especially when he didn't even use it for anything (not that I think cutting it up for bait would have justified killing it, but at least he'd have used it for something ... I guess).

How I spent my birthday.

Well, This Sucks

I've come from a week of sunny-and-80-degrees to waking up in Wytheville, Virginia to about 40 degrees. Ugh.

We split the trip home pretty evenly, we have about 7 hours to drive when we leave here this morning. It was a great trip, as always. And as always, it sucks coming home.

Meanwhile, I've got some of my pictures ready, so I thought I'd post them now. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I usually do, and I know Greg has more (and better ones), so after I get a chance to borrow his card I will probably have more to post tonight or tomorrow.

Our beach house living room ...

... and the kitchen ...



The walkway from our main deck to the beach.



I didn't take many pictures of the house, but it was really nice. It was smaller than the ones we've gotten in past years, but it worked out great. The other places were actually kind of too huge. This place still had 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a large living room and kitchen area, and an absolutely perfect deck - better than the other places, as it was bigger, and it was dog-safe - I could let Tyler run loose out there without any danger. This house was really perfect for us, and I totally wouldn't mind staying here again.

Tyler on the beach.


Tyler napping.


A dolphin ...



And some ocean pictures ...

Pre-Vacation Miscellanea

Why I love Knitty ...

... 'cause you find things like this there.

Since I haven't been knitting for a long, long time, I hadn't been to Knitty for a long, long time. This morning I decided to pop over (mostly just to check my link and make sure it was still working), and browsed this issue's free patterns. And found the above, which has no purpose in life other than being completely adorable, looking relatively quick and easy to knit, and being a free pattern.

But lest you think Knitty's all fluff, let me tell you that in every issue they have a bunch of patterns - all free - and most for extremely useful and beautiful things like sweaters (yes, entire sweaters - and cool ones), hats, socks, and a variety of other wearables. Did I mention they are all free? It's just so unusual to get such high-quality, unique patterns for free, consistently.

But I just might have to make some ZoZos.

This has made me think about knitting ... which I would like to do again. I know what happened. I got too lost on the project(s) I was working on, and there's just about nothing harder than trying to pick up a several-year-old project, re-orient yourself, and get it back on track. But I have some mental issue about starting a new project when I have old ones languishing.

There was the self-designed sweater I was knitting. For one thing, it wasn't going well, which was part of my frustration in not keeping up with it when it began to lag. For a second thing, I had grown to detest the color I'd chosen (and bought $100 worth of for this project), which doesn't encourage stick-to-it-iveness, either. Sigh.

Then I'm pretty sure I was working on a pair of socks, the whereabouts of which I do not even know. Sigh again.

I was working on a sweater a few years ago (Celtic Icon) which was going horribly wrong, and I remember that it actually caused me to stop knitting for awhile ... because I couldn't bear to pick it up anymore, yet I couldn't enjoyably justify starting anything new when I had that one that I wasn't working on. I finally made the tough but necessary decision to scrap that project, and rip it all out. Then I was able to move on.

While I hate the thought, that may be where the self-designed sweater is headed.

So I'm getting ready to go on my annual beach trip to North Carolina. I've always taken knitting with me. I've almost never worked on the knitting while there. I'm debating whether to dredge up some project, take it with me, and renew my knitting skills while on vacation; or wait till I come home and save the packing space. Decisions, decisions.

I'm paring down seriously this year on what I take. I usually took at least one knitting project, and five or six books. I often never even unpacked any of it. It would turn out that we'd either be busy the whole time, or even when I was just sitting around on the deck, I was too busy looking at the ocean to watch my knitting or words on a page.

This year I'm taking exactly 2 books (one fiction, one non-fiction - my mood varies), and was going to take an embroidery project 'just in case' ... but I don't really have one ready to go. My embroidery of the Death tarot card has reached a point where I need to draw on some more of the design before I can continue, but it's a complicated bit of drawing for which I'd prefer to use the light box (tracing). But to do that, I need an enlarged copy of the card, which I've lost, and it's tricky to make a new one ... the room our copier is in at work is always crowded with people, so it's hard to find a chance to copy something when no one's around ... and I don't really want to explain why I'm standing at the office copier making an enlargement of a tarot card with the Grim Reaper on it.

(Although a simple "mwaahaahaaaa" might suffice to get people to leave me alone for the rest of the week ...)

Three more days ... we're now hoping to leave Friday night after all, and drive part-way and get a hotel room. We originally weren't going to, and were going to leave super-early Saturday morning - but even if we do that, we're liable to not get there till late Saturday evening, maybe not even before dark - and that just sucks.

But there's a lot to do to get ready by Friday night. And what really pisses me off is, I could have done it - except that I woke up Sunday morning with the worst back pain I think I've ever had. It's all concentrated around a spot on the right-hand side about mid-way up, and feels for all the world like a pulled muscle - which would be fine, I could know what to expect if that was it - except I'd done nothing in the preceding days to cause a pulled muscle, and have not been able to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. Also, pulled or strained muscles (on me anyway) usually begin clearing up in a day or two, but we're going on Day 4, and it's as bad as ever - and most of the time excruciating. I can barely move, which has put a real damper on the energy and motivation needed to get things all packed up in time to leave on Friday.

Ah, the week leading up to a vacation. Always a joy.

The Last Weekend ...

I always love to do seasonal and holiday decorating ... or at least, I like the idea of doing it. I'm such a procrastinator that usually it's two days before, and I'm thinking "It would have been nice if I'd have ...".

In the new house, I'm determined to get over that. So I jumped on an idea this weekend that I'd been wanting to do for years, at the old house, and never got around to.


I also did a little fall decorating in the living room ... just a tad so far. I bought some faux fall decor at the craft store the other day, and created a little spontaneous arrangement in my kim chi pot.




I like it.

Yesterday I cooked the food for our vacation. Every year we rent a beach house. It does not come with a cook. We don't like to eat out at restaurants every night. Ergo, we need to provide our own food. The first year, with some misguided idea that it would just 'all work out,' we had almost nothing to eat all week, except junk food. I was not happy. Last year we went out after we got there and bought a bunch of groceries, but then we had to cook most evenings ... something that doesn't thrill me on vacation (who wants to drag themselves up from a gorgeous beach at 5:00 p.m., when the rum's just starting to settle nicely, and go inside and cook dinner?). And spent a lot more money than we needed to on a lot of food that ended up not getting eaten, anyway. This year, in my new Seal-A-Meal phase, I cooked up some stuff in advance and froze it. Then most nights I can just heat something up, and voila ... delicious, hot dinner without all the vacation effort.

I also cooked all of Tyler's food for the entire week plus a day or two after we come home, and froze that up in little individual serving portions.

Today will be laundry and packing. And painting the dining room, because I'm determined to get it done before we go. At least the walls ... we haven't picked our trim color yet, and I'm not rushing it. We have a little collage of choices we're thinking about ..



... but none of them have really jumped out and said "I'm it!" yet. I'm waiting till just the right color hits me.

It will. I have faith in my creative inspiration. It's often slow, but eventually, it gets me there. I think that I will definitely delay any decision till after vacation, because since the theme of this room is going to be 'beach house,' and we're going to the coast, I wouldn't be surprised if some particularly luscious color combination jumps out at me from somewhere on this trip ... a particularly nice sunset, an interesting shop, someone's boat, a random beach crab ... and I'll say, "Aha! That's the color we need!"