Original Creations

So I've decided that I have enough of an eye for color that I can hand dye yarn for sale. From my first couple that I like so much that I'm not willing to part with, however, this could become somewhat of another addiction! Anyway, I'm working on color recipes at this point, and using only non-toxic dyes. My first two that I'm happy with are pictured here. The one I'm not so happy with is not photographed...it refuses to stop bleeding and even dyed my fingers for me after it was dry when I was just trying to wind it. But these two are a success and I'm keeping them. When I get my first order of bare yarn I'll start working on it for real and put it up on etsy. In the meantime, just the stitch markers are available CraftsMeow.etsy.com.

Pictured here: Pineapple Sherbet and Fruit Bowl (top and side shots to show the colors of honeydew base, and splashes of strawberry and raspberry).

Today isn't a lucky day!

I just read Cara's blog http://www.lazycrafter.com/ and got a laugh out of the astrological info posted for her birthday. So I looked up mine. I find it rather amusing. Some of the songs that were popular back then are ones we still hear today. Don't know that we'll be able to say that about songs that are recorded today.

http://www.paulsadowski.com/birthday.asp if you want to look up your own.

Your date of conception was on or about 22 August 1958 which was a Friday (mom was obviously busy that day!).

You were born on a Friday
under the astrological sign Taurus.
Your Life path number is 8.

Your fortune cookie reads:
Your skill will accomplish what the force of many cannot. Ah! So I am skilled...and learning new ones every day. Love it!

Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 8, 11 & 22. Ray is a 4, so I guess we really are compatible.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path number 6. Do I know any 6's?
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 1 & 5.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 3, 7 & 9. But Cara is a 9 and we get along great!

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2436703.5.
The golden number for 1959 is 3.
The epact number for 1959 is 21.
The year 1959 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/8/1959 and ending 1/27/1960.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Pig.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Beaver; your plant is Wild Clover.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Epipy, the third month of the season of Shomu (Harvest).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 7 Iyyar 5719.

The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.17.5.10.19 which is
12 baktun 17 katun 5 tun 10 uinal 19 kin

The Hijra (Islamic Calendar) date of your birth is Friday, 7 Dhi'l-Qa'dih 1378 (1378-11-7).

The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 29 March 1959.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 3 May 1959.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 11 February 1959.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 17 May 1959.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 24 May 1959.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Saturday, 3 October 1959.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Thursday, 23 April 1959.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 10 February 1959.

As of 3/24/2009 6:40:04 PM EST
You are 49 years old. (Don't tell anyone!)
You are 598 months old.
You are 2,602 weeks old.
You are 18,211 days old.
You are 437,082 hours old.
You are 26,224,960 minutes old.
You are 1,573,497,604 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Jamie-Lynn Sigler (1981)	David Charvet (1972)	Emmitt Smith (1969)
George Brett (1953)	Madeleine Albright (1937)	Trini Lopez (1937)
Anna Maria Alberghetti (1936)	Jasper Johns (1930)	Eddy Arnold (1918)
James Mason (1909)	Joseph Cotten (1905)

Top songs of 1959

Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin	The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton
Venus by Frankie Avalon	Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price
The Three Bells by The Browns	Lonely Boy by Paul Anka
Come Softly to Me by Fleetwoods	Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Platters
Heartaches By the Number by Guy Mitchell	Sleep Walk by Santo & Johnny

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 7.12759295499021 years old. (You're still chasing cats!) I'm younger than my dog!!!

Your lucky day is Friday. Very true.
Your lucky number is 6. Didn't know that. I'll remember that next time I buy a lottery ticket.
Your ruling planet(s) is Venus. Love love love!
Your lucky dates are 6th, 15th, 24th.
Your opposition sign is Scorpio. Um...I'm married to a Scorpio. And my oldest daughter is a Scorpio. So opposites attract?
Your opposition number(s) is 9 & 11.

Today is not one of your lucky days!

There are 52 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 50 candles.

Those 50 candles produce 50 BTUs,
or 12,600 calories of heat (that's only 12.6000 food Calories!) .
You can boil 5.71 US ounces of water with that many candles.

In 1959 there were approximately 4.0 million births in the US.
In 1959 the US population was approximately 150,697,361 people, 50.7 persons per square mile.
In 1959 in the US there were approximately 1,667,231 marriages (11.1%) and 385,144 divorces (2.6%)
In 1959 in the US there were approximately 1,452,000 deaths (9.6 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1959 the population of Australia was approximately 10,160,968.
In 1959 there were approximately 226,976 births in Australia.
In 1959 in Australia there were approximately 74,363 marriages and 7,315 divorces.
In 1959 in Australia there were approximately 89,212 deaths.

Your birth flower is LILY. I've never really liked lilies...

Your birthstone is Emerald. Love emeralds

The Mystical properties of Emerald

Though not meant to replace traditional medical treatment, Emerald is used for physical and emotional healing.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Agate, Chrysoprase

Your birth tree is

Chestnut Tree, the Honesty

Of unusual beauty, does not want to impress, well-developed sense of justice, vivacious, interested, a born diplomat, but irritable and sensitive in company, often due to a lack of self-confidence, acts sometimes superior, feels not understood, loves only once, has difficulties in finding a partner. Okay so I didn't meet Ray until I was in my 40's...

There are 276 days till Christmas 2009! I didn't need to know that.
There are 289 days till Orthodox Christmas!

The moon's phase on the day you were
born was in its first quarter.

Knitting and Etsy

I'm headed today to a retreat for the weekend with the other folks from the local yarn store. The goal of the weekend is to finish up projects that have been hibernating. I'm taking 2 with me, maybe 3, and the one I must focus on is Paula's baby blanket. Her baby girl is due at the end of next month, but we're having the shower on April 4.

I also started making some cute stuff to sell on Etsy! I'll be doing hand-dyed yarn as well, but that is still to come. CraftsMeow

March anniversary

Ray and I met face-to-face for the first time today, 9 years ago. We'd been communicating via email for a couple of months but March 11 was our first meeting. Mimi's Cafe in Dublin for dinner. And during that dinner we discovered we worked less than a mile from each other in SF!

March seems to be shaping up to be sock month for me. There has been zero interest in my resume, and now I'm bored. So I knit a good part of the day. My wrist has given me some reprieve and hasn't been bothering me nearly as much...just at night. So I'll have to start wearing the brace again I guess. Anyway, I've finished 2 pair of socks already this month, and here's proof!

Housewife?

Am I really a housewife now? Wow...who woulda thunk it? I've had absolutely zero response to resumes, and the job listing I get for payroll professionals every other week has maybe 3 jobs listed, never any that are local, when the list used to be 25-30 positions. So, I guess 25 years' experience and a degree just doesn't count for much in this economy. So my life now revolves around the house, planning menus and making dinner, and making economical choices. Such as:

• The kitties no longer get premium cat food...they get Cat Chow Indoor Formula mixed with Costco brand. And they don't throw up anymore! So all we needed to do to quit having to clean up cat yuk every day was to put them on cheap food. Go figure...
• If the kitties don't get premium cat food then Prada doesn't get premium dog food either...at least not as much. Her food is now mixed with Beneful and she couldn't care less.
• Dinner is still the best cuts of meat, but we buy in bulk so it costs less and I've learned to actually do something with leftovers! Did you know that leftover chicken and/or leftover tri-tip makes for GREAT enchiladas? I didn't...now I do. I used to put leftovers in the fridge, wait until they would look like a science experiment, and then throw them away. Not so any longer!
• Yarn diet...sigh. Nope. I won't lower my standards on this one...ever. But I am committed to knitting up everything I own before I die. The first thing on my bucket list I guess.

Ray did an in-person interview after a successful phone screening and felt good about it. But it's been a week and they haven't called. Now, looking back on it, he's thinking it was more fishing for information rather than honestly looking for a web architect. Bummer...

So life goes on. This week it's time to find an accountant to start our taxes. I sure hope there will be good news on that front.

Chanel's latest picture - she helps me knit! Actually she just sleeps.

How much can one guy handle?

Sofie and Nelson decided they had to have daddy's lap, and Chanel wrapped her tail around his neck. How much pussy can one guy handle??

The applicances all work!

The washer/dryer came last week and we washed everything...it was so funny. Ray's like "how does it get anything clean" because there is no agitator. I wondered the same thing but it does. And to dry a load of towels in 30 minutes is pretty darn cool. I anticipate our PG&E bill will go down somewhat, and our water bill should too. It's been raining most of the time the past couple of weeks so the sprinklers are turned off, and that combined with a high efficiency washer should help.

And the stove was installed today...YAY!!! We will have to replace the counter top since the stove didn't quite fit and the tiles that were cut to make it fit don't look very pretty. But that can wait until either Ray gets this new job or until I'm working again. The ovens preheat in about 5 minutes and cook perfectly, so no preheating for 15 minutes only to have it be too hot and wait for the temp to go down...I was so over that old stove. I'm sure it was the original from when the house was built 20 years ago.

StitchesWest is this weekend - Liz and I are going on Friday. Can't wait!

Appliances and Interviews...

Our new stove arrived yesterday...I am so excited! We have to have someone come in and install it though. The current stove is a drop in model that is hard-wired, and the new one is a slide-in (or could be freestanding if we had the room) with a smooth cooktop and double oven. Right now it's sitting in the dining room and hopefully we'll be able to get someone out here early next week to do the installation.

And when it rains it falls...the washer is dead so we bought a new washer and dryer too. Those come on Friday and hopefully the same installer can do those at the same time. I decided I want to paint the laundry room a pretty color...maybe a sunny yellow that will compliment the new teal washer and dryer. These appliances are more efficient than what we own now so maybe we can get our electric and water bills down a bit.

And finally...I hate interviews. Today's interview is with a recruiter, so it will get my resume out there and hopefully some prospects.

What we have to go through to get to our bed each night...

Debit Cards!

So I got to spend 3 days freaking out over why my debit card didn't work anymore...and learned through the process that bank employees are either inadequate, or are just not adequately informed.

On Sunday it worked fine, and on Monday after swiping it 3 times and the cashier swiping it and then manually entering the numbers it finally worked after they suspended the sale and took me to another register. They said they were going to call their tech support because they thought that terminal was broken.

On Tuesday it failed when I was doing the grocery shopping for the week, so I did an electronic check instead. When I got home, I had an email from the retailer for an online purchase that morning that had been declined, for a piddly $40. I spent 30 minutes on the phone (with someone probably in India pretending to know English) who tells me there is nothing wrong with the card, nothing wrong with the account, so please go try to use it again. Sigh.

It failed. At Starbucks. For $3. Excuse me?? So I drive over to Citibank and walk in and the teller looks at everything and tells me everything is fine. She asked me to make an ATM withdrawal to see if it would work at the ATM and it does. So she asks me to go to the grocery store across the way to test it. It worked fine! I think it's cured and what do you know...I head to the yarn store to get an Addi size 3 needle to finish the baby sweater I'm working on and the card fails. We're talking 10 minutes after it worked at the grocery store for a flat of water. Back to Citibank I go, this time sitting down with the manager. She tells me all this garbage about it maybe being a "network" issue where I'm shopping...excuse me but the people immediately before and after me in line don't have "network" issues. So she calls in and is told the same thing I was - there is no problem with the card or the account.

I head to the grocery store to do the major shopping...it fails. No way am I going to do this shopping for a third time, so the cashier suspended the sale while I called Citibank from the store and I told the guy I wouldn't hang up until he had the problem solved. FINALLY someone understood that there was a real problem here! He left me on hold for quite some time and came back to tell me there had been a fraud alert placed on my account and that someone should have called me days ago. He apologized for that call never being made, took the alert off the account, and stayed on the phone with me while the cashier recalled my sale and the card worked exactly the way it was supposed to.

Bank...thanks for the fraud alert, but please give me a head's up next time...and don't spend the federal bail out money on a luxury jet please.

Charity Knitting

I've started going to Thursday night charity knitting at Benicia Knitting Circle, something I've wanted to do on a regular basis for a long time but when I was working I'd have to come home first to feed Prada, and then I wouldn't want to go back out. So now we go together and it's so great! Last month we did hats for a homeless shelter in Fairfield, so I knitted one and contributed the Hat Attack hat that killed me. This month the recipient is Project Linus and while it's exciting to think of knitting up a cute blankie for a child in need, it's ominous considering how many things I've already got on needles. Can we say a baby blanket for Paula's baby coming in April, a sweater for me, and 3 (soon to be 4) pair of socks? And I want to do a baby sweater too...YIKES! Anyway, the lady who heads up the project here comes to the group too and will be collecting blankets year-round so I don't feel like I absolutely have to do one this month. I do see this as a great opportunity to use up some old Michaels stash that's been hanging around for a very long time because I don't like acrylic yarn. This might be just the way to make good use of it because the blankets have to be machine washable/dryable. So I guess I'll start a Linus blanket now ;-)

Z Stash

So today I am "officially" unemployed...TPL gave me the news on Jan. 8 and told me I could choose to work or not (I chose not) through 2/2, my official last day. So I am off the payroll at the end of today.

I took to organizing stash, and that is both good and bad. Good because it's like omg I don't even remember buying this as I find yarn still in the bag (with the receipt)...but bad because my brain goes into overload wanting to knit it all up like right now. I'm going to do 3 pair of socks this month for the February Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry...I can't decide which I like best so I'll just do all 3. HA! Anyway, I got my TOFUtsies stash photographed and up on Ravelry and into a spacebag and stored away. No more of my yarn is going to become a feast for a moth!

The physical therapy on the right wrist actually has triggered more soreness...maybe that's normal. Not sure - I'll ask Dan the PT guy tomorrow. When I go to pick up my final pay check :-(

The Ouch Factor

So I've had recurring pain in both wrists for quite some time and finally had it evaluated today. The good news: the doc doesn't think it's carpal tunnel. The bad news: all these doctors want to do is prescribe pain relievers. I want the problem solved, not hidden behind drugs. So I start physical therapy tomorrow. And in the meantime, the pain keeps me awake, typing hurts but so does knitting...if I can't knit what do I do???

Looking for a good deal on a Coach handbag? I just listed several on eBay!!! Must supplement the lack of income...

A new era

The inauguration of President Obama had me captivated. I always pay attention, but this one was quite special. I feel like we can finally move forward with what America is supposed to be, and that is without a President who doesn't appear to be an idiot. Can we say nu-cle-ar?

I'm home beginning week #3 of unemployment. I'm so upset with TPL for deciding that payroll management is a non-essential function of running a business! So a new, better opportunity awaits I'm sure. It's just a matter of finding it. While I'm waiting, I'm getting LOTS of knitting done! This week is finishing stuff. I finished my January SKA socks on Saturday, and today I will finish my little short socks. My knitting goal for the rest of this week is to finish the linen sweater and finish Rina's blankie. Then on Monday, which is February 1, I can start my February SKA socks!