Another WIP completed

And at long last, the Christmas Robin is finished. I'm not 100% happy with it. I had trouble making a pom pom, so went for a tassel instead, and even that is rather lame-looking. I'll probably replace it at some point. For now, though, it can stay the way it is as I am finally DONE with the silly thing. I mean, it's not a very big project, and I did start it last October, so you think it would have been done ages ago.

I have some temp work next week, huzzah! It's only for five days, but hey I'll take it. Ironically, it's at my old job; BT called & asked if I'd be willing to help out. It's fiscal quarter end, plus PB (formerly Mr. Boss Man) is moving on to another company so I'm sure they're swamped. Not looking forward to the drive, of course, although I am looking forward to seeing the people.

Actually, I saw a lot of the people on Tuesday; I was in Chino dropping off some books for Lizard (she's going to see if she can get them signed at Comic-Con) & as long as I was nearly to Ontario I went & visited with some folks. Had lunch with DW which was nice. However, there were a lot of folks I didn't see that I would have liked to, so this will be good. I do wish that I'd remembered to move the Saturn into the driveway before I left. For some reason I was thinking it was already there, so of course we got a parking ticket (street sweeping). Le sigh.

Made some brownies yesterday, and they were pretty good. Not great; I like them chewier & fudgier than this recipe makes but good enough to make again someday. It was a new recipe for me. I tried it because it used cocoa, which I have, rather than baking chocolate, which I don't have.

Not much else going on. Hope your week was more exciting than mine :-)

No clever title today, I'm afraid

Look! Look! I've made some progress on the pony at last. Unfortunately I need to knit a new ear as I've somehow managed to lose one of them, go figure. I suspect it's hiding with the white pipe cleaners that I need to finish the Death of Rats, and the ground cloves I wanted for the rice pudding I cooked yesterday.

I've been looking into going back to school for occupational classes, since it seems everyone on the job market today does the same type of office work that I do. The first place I checked out seemed perfect until they told me the cost. Oh. My. Gawd. They want $15,000 for an 8-month class. Their "financial aid" consists of paying half up front, and then paying a little over $1,000 a month for seven months to pay off the rest. That is NOT financial aid, that's a payment plan and not even a very good one. If I had $7,500 to plunk down and a spare $1,000 a month I wouldn't be needing financial aid now, would I?

The second place I was going to visit tomorrow, however I checked out their tuition online and discovered it's even worse; they charge by the credit hour (anywhere from $350 to $500 per credit hour, depending on the class) and when I did the math based on the lowest figures it came to over $23,000. I'm going to be cancelling my appointment.

Yesterday, I did some checking into adult schools, and that seems much more reasonable. The fall schedules aren't posted yet so I had to base my calculations on the summer schedule. Summer classes are shorter, but even tripling the cost per class it comes out to a lot less than $15,000. The schedule for fall is supposed to be posted next week so I'll be following up on that.

ComicCon is next week, and oh I wish I were going! This year sounds like it's going to be excellent: Penn & Teller will be there, and so will Danny Elfman, and one of my favorite cartoonists, Bill Amend, will be there on Friday & Saturday. That would be worth dealing with the crowds & parking. Lizard is going along with one of her Ravelry friends, who will be staying at her place for the week.

Ralph was at his aunt's place in Las Vegas for the weekend, and is on his way home now. He expects to be here soon, and we're planning on going to the movies, a real treat right now with money so tight. We want to see "Despicable Me," which I've heard is excellent.

A photo, a word of advice, and a funny link

PHOTO: Four owlet ornaments; pattern "Owlies," knit with leftover bits of Plymouth Encore. I knit these for an online group I'm in, the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. The "class" was ancient runes; my letter was "O" in case you couldn't guess. I was going to make eight of them (so I'd have an octet of owlet ornaments) however since I have no use whatsoever for them I decided not to use up all my eyes making more.

WORD OF ADVICE: If you are kneeling on the floor to look at books on the bottom shelves at the library, and your knee pops painfully when you start to stand up, *do not* grab the shelf in an attempt to keep your balance. The shelf WILL tilt, and you WILL have every book on it bounce off your head. Not that I would know this from personal experience or anything, but I am glad that they were all paperbacks.

FUNNY LINK: You will never look at sweet potatoes the same way again http://littera-abactor.livejournal.com/7748.html

Yes, yes, it's been ages

Greetings, O Teeming Millions! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. There just doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on right now. I mean, I'm sure you don't want to hear about how I washed the kitchen floor this morning, or the fact that it's bloody hot (gosh, imagine that--hot weather in Southern California in July. Who'da thunk it?).

We did have one odd thing happen recently. We were awakened one morning around 5:00 am by the dogs barking. I heard someone on the porch call out, "Hello?" Long story short, it was the cops. Apparently a petty thief had been caught in our neighborhood, and one of the things in his possession was the Bronco logo off the side of our truck. What a strange thing to steal! And ours wasn't the only one; as the officers were leaving one of them pulled out another logo & said they still had to track down that vehicle. Very odd.

Surprisingly, I have not been doing that much knitting. I have frogged Snape twice so far, and am now on Row 14 out of 111 (or 19 out of 121 if you count the border rows). I'm also planning on frogging my blue socks, as I believe I've mentioned previously, since I'm not happy with how they are coming out. I did get started on seaming the pony, if you can believe that.

Did I mention that Ralph is going to be singing in a church talent show? We're not actually part of the church, however we're friends with some people who are and they asked him to help out as they didn't have a tenor available. They are going to do "A Weekend in the Country" from "A Little Night Music." I'm not sure exactly when the performance is, only that it is sometime next month. We've attended the show for the last three years & it's always been fun. Of course since Ralph is in it this time, I'm looking forward to it even more than usual.

Last Friday I went out with MH2, our friend MB, MB's daughter whose name also begins with M, so I'll call her Young MB, and MB's baby. It was a short outing; we all got pedicures except the baby, and Young MB also got a manicure. My toenails are now the color of a Louie Blue Raspberry Otter Pop. PH2 felt that MH2 needed a girl's day out after all the stress of her father's illness & passing, and he paid for everything. This was my very first pedicure. It was rather nice although I'm not sure I'll ever get another one. I'm just not that frou-frou I guess.

Today's photo was taken at the Bolsa Chica Wildlife Preserve. Have you ever seen such a fuzzy caterpillar?

'Twas the day after the fourth

Making good progress on the Death of Rats. I just need to weave in the ends on the robe, crochet the tail, and make the scythe. Hope I can find the silver paint for the scythe blade. The photo is from before the sleeves were put on the robe; updated photo pending.

Had a great time at Neighbors K & A's BBQ potluck yesterday. Lots of good conversation, and yummy food which I ate like I'd never been fed. I thought the "goldfish pond" cupcakes someone brought were really cute. Got home before the worst of the poppy-bangies started up. You would think, seeing as how fireworks are illegal in this town, that poppy-bangies wouldn't be an issue, but some folks would rather break the law than bother driving to one of the free professional, public fireworks displays. We had to give Hali a tranquilizer & put her in the closet to keep her relatively calm. And no, it's not mean to put her in the closet. She likes to sleep there--it's her "safe place"--and we kept the door open just enough for her to push it the rest of the way when she was ready to come out, which she did around 3:30 this morning.



Just got back from PH2 & MH2's place. MH2's father passed away yesterday morning after a fight with cancer, and they were feeling the need for a little company. I helped take some stuff down to Goodwill & sort through some other items. A few more friends dropped by right around the time that I needed to head back home so that worked out well. I felt better knowing I wasn't leaving them without any company.

'Twas the night before the fourth

Today we made a wonderful discovery. There is an Oroweat Outlet only 30 minutes away from home. We got four loaves of Baker's Best Winter Wheat (Ralph's favorite), a 24-count package of Sandwich Thins, an eight-count box of Entenmann's chocolate donuts, and a 6-count package of Thomas's English Muffins for only $9.96. The donuts & English muffins were free because we spent $10 (or close enough to it that they gave us the freebies). Even taking into account the extra gas driving there, it still saved us a lot of money. The Winter Wheat bread is $4.29 a loaf at the store, and here it was only $1.99 a loaf. The money we saved on one loaf is pretty much enough to pay for the extra gas since my car gets such good mileage.

I've got several knitting projects on the needles. Snape is barely started, and of course I haven't touched the pony (that sounds kinky!) in weeks. So of course I had to cast on a couple new items. One is the Death of Rats pattern (here's a pic of what it is supposed to look like when it's done):
I don't like how the fabric robe came out on mine, so I'm experimenting to come up with a knitted one instead. Working on the hood now & I think I've just about got it figured out. I still need to crochet the tail, and make the scythe too.

I'm also participating in a Mystery Knit Along on Ravelry. The sponsor is posting 1/4 of the pattern each week for the month of July. I've already finished the first part. I have a pretty good idea of what it's going to be based on the materials list and the pattern so far, but I'm not going to say in case one of the Teeming Millions happens to be participating as well.

Found another tasty pattern on Allrecipes.com, this one a Cabbage Roll Casserole. Basically you take all the ingredients for cabbage rolls, stir them all together and cook. The originally recipe called for baking it for 90 minutes, however I followed the advice of one of the reviewers & threw everything in a big pot and simmered it on the stove top for about 20 minutes, then topped each serving with a dollop of sour cream. It was really good, and so simple! The original recipe made 12 servings, so I cut it in half & we've got plenty left for two more meals, maybe even three if we make the servings a bit small and serve it with some buttered bread to fill in the cracks. Goodness knows we have enough bread now :-)

Today's picture is of Ralph & Sadie at the dog park last week.