Goodbye '05

Thanks to Brian and Patty for a fabulous pre-NYE party last night. Much fun, so much in fact that I have no real interest in going out again tonight. Mostly cleaning and organizing to make room for a new little space heater in the office. Hopefully that will make the temperature in there workable. Lots of watching Law and Order: CI/SVU as well.

Still working off the hangover of far too many vodka cranberries. Eesh. Anyway, Happy New Year!

New Scary Things

Have you ever been to an American Girl Place store?

It's the scariest thing you can do a week before Christmas. Thinking about being surrounded by rabid mothers and whining children in an atmosphere fitting for a cult makes me want to stab my eyes out.

Oh the things you learn when you hang out with an 11 year old.

Not Trapped in the Basement

It has been brought to my attention that my absence from social gatherings has led people to suspect that Mr. T has either killed me and hidden the body, or has me locked in the basement. Truth be told, I've locked myself in the basement. Well, actually not the basement because the basement is Creepy. There's a room down there that I think the former dope growing weirdo previous owner of the building used for sacrifices. From the looks of all the splatters all over the walls, the sacrifices were piñatas filled with tar. They're too big, and it's too much to be resin, but then, he was growing a lot of weed down there so you never know.

Over the past week, after thinking I was getting better I got slammed with a full on sinus infection. I blame it on the little kid in line in front of me at a large Craft store chain whose face was covered in snot. I'm not kidding. Covered. In. Snot. She looked at me like all small kids do, with a mixture of fear and amusement, and I think in that look she Germed me. That's gotta be it. That, or the touching of escalator handrails, door handles, and product that hundreds of other people had touched while Christmas Shopping.

I'm not germ phobic at all. Really, no fear of dirt or other people. Germs are good for you, being exposed to them can make you less likely to get sick. Well, unless they're really BAD germs. You don't want those. Common sense caution and condoms are always called for. I caught a few minutes of the Tony Danza Show as I was leaving for work and Howie Mandell (jesus crap, I can't believe I'm not only writing those two names, but in the same sentence even) was a guest. He's got full blown OCD and can't/wont touch anything. He wont even shake hands. That's fucked up. I have a coworker who is almost that bad and I taunt him by calling his name and touching the bottom of my shoe with the palm of my hand.

Back to the point. I ran into one of my dear friends who has been fearing for my life lately at the post office (another fine repository of germy goodness) and I literally burst out laughing when I saw him. The jig is up! Proof that I am alive!

The Tension Builds

I have a friend who hates children. More specifically, she hates strollers. She'll hide behind whomever her companion is at the time when she sees them. She did this to me once at the mall, squeaked, and fled, fearing those knee high contraptions of doom would start hunting her. If you spend a lot of time in malls, I could see an irrational fear of strollers becoming a problem.

The task of the weekend was to finish Christmas shopping. Dispite many good intentions for doing mostly home-maders this year, it has ended up being a store-bought holiday. Last night an ambitious project was started in the form of a blanket, but chances are really good that it will turn into Yet Another Scarf as time runs out.

For the most part, going into malls and shopping centers around the holidays is something I'm well prepped for. The lines, the agitated suburbanites, the downright crazy people, and the children, ah yes, the children. You know it's coming, so there's no need for getting all worked up about it, just go in, get it done, and get out. There WILL be a line, so don't be in a hurry. My one near moment of wanting to stab something happened while trying to find baby clothes, size 24 months for my not yet year old nephew/godson. In the mall outside of the entry for JCPenny, there was a line that went on for miles, miles, waiting to get to see Santa. This in and of itself is not so terrible, it was that someone, unseen from my position was trying frantically to get some poor frightened child to smile for the picture being taken, by squeezing what sounded like a dog toy over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over resonating with an echo over the white noise din of the crowd and bouncing off of gleaming linoleum. It was horrible. That was supposed to help? I was only walking past, ready to stab my ears out, I can only imagine what it was like, standing in line for hours with not even the excitement of a roller coaster at the end, just kids scared out of their wits being plunked down on the lap of a total stranger and a loud squeaky toy.

More Yarning

Finally getting around to making some Christmas presents. This weekend will probably be all about Christmas shopping. This year seems to be pretty easy, the lists from my family are all pretty simple.

Last night my friend Liza and I went to a huge yarn shop to match up some other yarns to this lovely handspun, hand dyed yarn, from a woman in California who does the most incredible spinning, which I've had for a while now. It's been sitting because I didn't want to make Yet Another Scarf. I think one will become a sweater and the other a large rectangle wrap. I'm open to ideas though, so if you got any, lemme know.

It snowed all night last night, and besides issues with getting my windshield cleared off, the drive to work this morning was great fun.

Yup

Still cold. So cold I can't wash the Miata which is coated in a thick layer of salt. Salt! I hate salt. Why can't we use more sand? Or make people use snow tires? Snow tires are the best thing EVER.

Time to take it to the carwash. I'm afraid of automatic carwashes ever since last winter, when I got stuck in one when it just stopped working with my car coated in soap. I rocked back and forth, waited, and finally sheepishly opened my door. Nothing. Looked around to make sure I would run over anything, and then exited the building. After a second attempt and yelling at the mean, stupid man at the gas station's counter, I ended up driving to another gas station with a car wash to finish the job. That sucked.

I need to take a picture of me in my shawl skirt. It's a big triangle that I crocheted last year, that I wrap around my waist and tie there as a lapghan because I'm sick of taking it off and putting it back on everytime I get up from my desk to pee or get more hot water for my tea. Cold, so cold.

Global Warming My Ass

I know, I know, Tuvalu is sinking, but it's goddamn cold out.

Weekend in Review

The past week I haven't really been feeling well. Just kind of on-going overtired and minor sinus stuff which means lots of headaches. Whee! Spent one night after work going through supplies and Mr. T got this lovely shot of me trying to keep warm while re-winding half used skeins of yarn. Very unfortunate hair that night.

A second item sold from my Etsy Shop yesterday which was fabulous. Very exciting. This should be pushing me to produce more stock, but after processing the order in the morning, and going to the post office to send stuff out, I had to go up to Fredonia to deplete the town of its electrical supply by setting up my parent's Christmas tree which has somewhere around 5,000 strings of lights on it. The ambient temperature of the room goes up about 10 degrees when they plug that sucker in. This is a long standing tradition in our family, my mother's obsession with having a well lit tree. Every branch gets wrapped with one string each of white and colored lights. Mercifully it's a fake tree, the kind that kind of folds open which makes this process much easier and only leaves my arms minorly raw from the scraping of plastic pine needles.

We dined on sloppy joes and potato salad since my mom has been feeling ill as well. This run of chemo isn't agreeing with her, and she was recovering from a day of dry heaves. She was able to eat a little bit which was good. I think she got a spot of food poisoning from turkey leftovers. Her immune system is compromised, so any little bit of bacteria will wreak havoc on her system, you know, because I'm a trained doctor and can diagnose things like that.

After getting toasty in front of the blazing hot tree, I headed off in the middle of a snowstorm to go to a work-related party. This annual piss-up is an "Appreciation" party for one of our clients. The turn out was much smaller than previous years, probably due to the road conditions that in most places required a brave driver and/or snow tires. Fortunately for me and my tiny rear wheel drive convertible, I have both. The drinking was kept at a reasonable level and the innapropriateness was manageable. Nothing too terrible. I did get a vodka tonic dumped on me at the end of the night when I tried tackling one of my bosses because he stole the small toy rubber chicken I'd shoved in my coworker's cleavage. (She'd pulled it out herself, he didn't go diving in for it.)

There was an inexplicable coin operated vending machine with monkey stickers and rubber chickens in it at the bar where the party was being held. The surrealness of this scene just barely beat out the discovery of a whole pig being roasted on a spit out back, and my later consumption of a small piece of it, and immediately regretting it. Just can't eat something that has a face. Can't do it without regret. Not a vegetarian mind you, but if there's a face on it when served, no go.

Woke up this morning with a headache that wouldn't go away. Spent most of the day just hanging around the house. Packaged up an order, watched a bunch of crappy movies that I've already seen a bunch of times. Nice to not do much of anything, and my goal tonight is to go to bed before midnight. I'd been hoping to make something with the beautiful selection of beads I picked up Friday night but then got all wrapped up in finishing something I've been crocheting while watching Grey's Anatomy and realized it was getting late.

So here we come full circle to why I haven't made much of anything this weekend. I'll also blame a lot of it on the arctic temperature in my workspace. So cold, the bottoms of my feet hurt from the floor/permafrost layer. Maybe tomorrow night I'll make sure to turn the space heater on as soon as I get home from work. It just sucks to shiver all day at work, and then come home to more cold. Not good for productivity at all. Maybe have to look into getting some timers. One for the space heater, and another for the espresso machine so that it starts heating up before I get out of bed.

Making Sales... Finally!

I sold my first item online today from my Etsy Shop! Hooray!

It was one of these bracelets, which have been the most popular item of the pieces that have been for sale at a boutique downtown called Lela.

It may have to do with the fact that someone picked the matching necklace for a "Featured Item" on the home page of Etsy. Since then, the traffic through the shop has skyrocketed, but sales are still slow. As in, one in the past four months. It's all good though, if business were booming, I'd never get over the illness I've been battling for the past week and a half. I hate being sick.

Mr. T turned to "Hard to Kill" and then went to bed. Mean! Just watched the scene where Steven Seagal performs acupuncture and moxabustion on himself. I'm pretty sure you can't do that. You especially can't do that on your own back, while you're sitting, meditating. Now he's getting it on with the chick the geeks created in "Weird Science" who is wearing shoes that are way too big for her. Look at that, her heels are lifting out. I hate this movie. I'm going to sleep.

Fame Tracker for the Sockmonkey Suit: Part 1

Well lookie here, it appears the Sockmonkey Suit got a mention of sorts in the Shepherd Express, not just once, but twice! The Shepherd is the local left leaning weekly pub for those not in the know. It has long been my favorite weekly paper of all the places I've lived in, so of course I'm chuffed to see my painting and suit up there on the top of the page. Sweet-ness!

Kind of makes the lugging of a living room worth of furniture up two flights of stairs, getting covered in dust, and having to interact with people for two days almost worth it. I'm kidding, I kid. It was a fantastic experience, I'm just not sure I'm going to make a career out of craft shows. If it happens, it'll be with much less, and/or lighter furniture. That, and everything has to fit in the bed of Truckasaurus. Next time around will probably be a lot easier to deal with since the hard stuff like making signs, and constructing the backdrops from pvc pipe and 12 yards of fabric (that was a total score at $1.25 a yard!) is all done.

I've got note cards and 1" pins of the painting for sale if anyone is interested, and of course, Sockmonkey Suits are for sale. I've got a pile of them. $300 gets you a suit of socky-fun. If you want to use them for your perverted "furry" conventions, don't tell me, I don't want to know.

Thank you, Thank you, to the Paper Boat Ladies for organizing the event, you girls are the awesomest-est.