Saturday Fun

Yesterday I woke up in terrible pain thanks to Mother Nature's little joke and after having been unable to sleep well.  Jason was planning to go troll the junk stores, and I decided that I would go with him. We drove around and found several old books good for my mixed media crafts, and a candlestick and a little frame for my make-do project, and some ABC blocks I plan to use to make another make-do base. I usually avoid going to the junk/antique stores because he often goes with his parents, and they'll spend -hours- talking to the shop owners, and honestly, that's just not enjoyable to me. But with just my honey, it was kinda fun. I ended up with a bunch of books for like $2, and all I'm gonna do with them is tear the pages up for decoupage and art journalling, plus half a dozen small bottles destined to be made far prettier than they are right now, a little baggie of old-style ABC blocks I'll turn into something for Brittany and her baby.

Somewhere along the way we were treated to the most amusing sight; a snowman made of hay rolls.

This is how you know you live in the south.  Come fall, we see these hay rolls everywhere, dotting fields as they're left to try, piled on the edges of fields and in barns. But I have never before seen them fashioned into a giant ... I'd say at least 15'-tall.  While I was taking this picture, there was a dog barking at the house you can see in the background. He wasn't on a chain or lead or anything, but he didn't come after me. just barkbarkbarked until I got back in the car and we left. Just warning me 'don't come closer, this is my house!'

We had dinner at a place in Bessemer City (which is not a city) called The Gondola (pronounced gone-DOUGH-luh here, not GONE-dough-luh as you would think).  I was gonna get a steak, to reinforce my iron levels, but instead got the Butterfields Chicken. And it was a good choice.  It's chicken, sauteed onions and mushrooms and ham (or pancetta, I'm not sure which it was) in an alfredo sauce over spaghetti. I ended up only able to eat a bite or four before getting a to-go box, so Jason and I could share dessert, which was Peanut-butter Thunder cake. And oh, was it good!

We ended the day with two trips to Hobby Lobby. One in Gastonia .. which ended up with us walking out without purchasing anything because they were -rude- .. after which we went to the store in Rock Hill and ended up getting everything we needed there, and a little more, including the lined clear stamp Jason's been wanting badly. Yay!

I never did post pictures from the snow day we had this month.

We don't get a lot of snow, but this 'storm' kept honey home for a couple of days. It was nice .. even if we were sick for it.

Dear Wonderful Husband

Dear Wonderful Husband

Thank you for the wonderful day out. For taking me to the farmer’s market, and the art store, and to the barbecue place you love so much, to the liquor store which is always such fun, and to the craft and office supply store. They were all much fun, because they were with you! Thank you for being encouraged and excited about a new artistic venture, enough that you went back out to make sure you had the right tools and supplies, rather than getting discouraged and giving up. Thank you for letting me buy a pretty ornament for our tree this December (Yes Christmas stuff is -already out, and Halloween too) even though it’s only July.

Most of all, thank you for being you, for being my husband, and for being silly and dorky and wonderful!

Your Still Very Much In Love Wife

Things and Stuff

We cleaned out the closet this weekend. I'd already done a fair bit, going through my own clothes and pulling out anything I don't wear, or is too big/way-too-small for me, but I have been trying to get Jason to do the same. he resists it, because of all the money that's in the clothes we buy him, but I keep trying to tell him to not think about it. We already spent the money, it's being wasted whether we give the clothes new homes or whether it sits in the closet unused. He was grumpy though, which makes for not-so-fun times. I think he's happier now though, especially since we can actually hang all of our clothes in the closet again. We can get dressed somewhere other than the laundry room!

That bench on the short wall in this picture is where my half of the three bags had been sitting for months as I waited for him to get in gear and go through clothes himself. It's actually empty no. We could, feasibly, use it to have people over to eat! Not that most people want to eat our crazy low-carb diet. We got rid of our heavy down-like comforter and the duvet too, plus some blankets and shams and stuff. So much stuff collecting dust in our tiny home. Yay us!

I can't believe it's almost Christmas. Since the accident, time has kinda been a bit of a blur. Of course, keeping busy has helped that. And playing World of Warcraft a lot .. it's a time sink, but one I'm willing to sink. I'm doing more than that, though. I keep the house up, I knit. I've finished a few things recently. I really want to finish my owl, though, and just keep working on other stuff. He'll get finished eventually.

So, the end result of the accident was that my Torrent was totaled. The guy at Griffin's body shop said bare minimum it would have been $11k worth of repairs. Minimum. That's pretty freaking scary.



The photos were taken on my phone .. which lost its battery in the crash, and I didn't notice till after I took the pictures. Considering I didn't own the car on the date the photos say they were taken, I figure that's pretty obvious.

It didn't look like that much .. of course, I never opened the hood. Honestly, I was scared to. Well, I was just plain scared. And what made things worse is immediately after, I had to drive around town. Not that day, but the following one. And I was soooooore. Just from the whole tensing thing .. I wasn't injured in the slightest. I guess I got lucky there.

So I had a rental car for a couple weeks, and then the guy's insurance company called to inform me they considered the car a total loss. They paid me $15k, and my insurance company paid the difference between that and the cost of my loan. Or my GAP insurance did, one or the other. Probably the GAP. Allstate - who we love more than life right now .. sent us a check just recently for the purchase of a new vehicle, which is helping quite a bit.

And a new vehicle had to be bought fairly quickly. I knew I wanted something similar to the Torrent, if not another Torrent. Looking at the damage, at the way he hit me .. had I been in a normal-sized car .. well .. I wanted the size of the SUV. So we looked at a couple. A Ford something-or-other, and a Subaru Tribeca. I also considered another Torrent because, well .. I loved that car, and i wanted it back. but after driving the Ford and then the Subaru, I really liked the ride in the Subaru. And it's even better rated for safety.

So that's what I picked. And they were able to find one form me by the time I had to give the rental car back to Enterprise .. but Jason and his Dad had to drive all the way up to Cary to pick it up. So they did .. driving one car each up to the dealership that had mine in trade, then driving home in my beautiful new car. I couldn't go, because I had to get the rental back between certain hours since Enterprise is only open for 3 hours on Saturday. WTF is up with that??

So I have a new baby. Bronze metallic is the color. It has leather .. heated seats even. A sunroof .. though they call it a moonroof. Dual climate control. It doesn't have XM - which is now Sirius/XM anyway .. nor does it have the rear climate controls that the one I test drove had. But I can plug in an MP3 player easily, and I can probably switch my XM account to the portable player I bought for Jason before he got his G6. I might not bother, though. That's a bill we can avoid for a while, and I think my account was due to expire soon anyway It's not much, but with the way things are right now, it'll help.

*flop*

I'm so tired. We spent today .. what of it wasn't spent with Jason's family .. moving furniture. I no longer have the huge dresser in my office either. Now it's much more of an office .. bookshelves and such.

I still have a lot of work on the room though. And now Jason wants to move the bedroom furniture .. and Brandon's room. whee!

Hooray!

Self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl "Buffalo Bill" Hawkins, the founder of a religious sect in Abilene, Texas had said that on June 12, 2008 a nuclear war will begin. So .. yeah. He'd said it a couple of times, only to be ... believe it or not .. proven wrong. So .. June 12th has come and gone. And since I'm still here, and I assume you're still here, I can only assume that nuclear war did not indeed break out. So. Happily, we get to celebrate Jason's birthday!

That's right, today, Friday the Thirteenth, is my honey's birthday. And while sadly we did not get our advance copies of the new fantasy novel by Larissa Niec for his birthday, he did get some lovely little things .. and so did I! The little darling sent me some lovely little earrings. Jason and she are determined to turn me into a real girl, I swear it. I've gotten more jewelry in the last two years than I got in the previous twenty.

I'm supposed to be talking about home this month, for NaBloPoMo, and I've been a little slack. But I've actually been kinda busy with stuff I've been doing around the house. Not only did we get the big clunky desk finally out of my room, which made my room seem twice as big as it did before, I've gotten sheers on all the windows downstairs -including- my office, finally, and thile they're a little short, they do the job they're meant to do. We also cleared out a ton of crap out of the house, and just today I got rid of a bunch of boxes and trash and stuff from the whole 'new computer' process. Tomorrow, probably, we're going to put up the curtain rods in our bedroom so we can -finally- have curtains, and possibly even get some new ceiling fans. That is apparently going to be our birthday gifts from Jason's parents.

My mom and dad are giving us a Wii and probably a Wii Fit and stuff for Graduations and my birthday, and Jason's going to get, I think, a nice laptop bag since he's getting a laptop for himself. And I have a little pile of little somethings on his chair for him, waiting for him to come home. I don't know what we're going to do to celebrate other than that, though. We rarely really celebrate birthdays around here. I mean, we do, but we've reached an age where birthdays aren't really 'special' anymore. We'll see what he feels like. he's been working hard at the gym almost every day, so it's hard to do stuff after work, even though he does get our at 5:30 instead of 8-9pm.

Updatage

Okay. Pardon me while I have a bit of a berzerk, crazy, ecstatic moment ...

.. because ..



WE'RE GOING TO SEE WICKED IN CHARLOTTE!!!


Okay. Done squeeing now. For the moment.

In other news, I've finally had enough of the idiodicy that was the guild I was in on World of Warcraft, and switched to a guild that should have less drama, since they're not a roleplay-based guild. James came with me, and I really think, in the long run, we're going to be much happier this way. It turned out that certain individuals, who are obvious to me but won't come forward themselves lest they appear to be the assholes and bitches they truly are, accused me of stealing from the guild bank. Which is frankly rediculous, since I'd say I put a good 50% of the items in the bank, not to mention paid for two of the tabs they currently have, and half of three people's Epic flight mounts. So .. no, I don't deserve to take anything.

Dumbasses.

Anyway, with that annoyance out of my life, perhaps game stuff will get better. In other news, we're actually getting a refund this year, apparently. Jason did out taxes on Monday and found out that for the first time since the first year we got married, we're getting money back. Thank the Gods. That, coupled with him already getting a small raise and me getting most of my lost hours back makes for a very happy Tania.

Well .. that and the fact that this Friday evening I'm going to see Wicked!!

Huh. Blogger must be hungry.

It totally ate a post.

WoW is down for extended maintenance. Like .. 10 hours is what they have scheduled. That's insanity. They weren't down that long last patch day. *sighs* But I guess it's a good thing. I've got to get this paper written.

I'm totally sliding on schoolwork this semester and I know why. Wow is sucking my brain. All the drama of the last few months has just totally sapped me. The crap with Andrea and Nich and Elisabeth stabbing me in the back .. well, they'll get theirs. If they don't think I'm a vindictive bitch, they've got another thing coming. I know how to get to people.

Is that a healthy thought? No, probably not. but after the shit they did to me, I feel totally justified.

Jason is trying to figure out if we can afford to go to Santa Fe with Larissa in the early part of next year. I'd like that, even if it's only a couple of days. He's also thinking we can switch things around so my paychecks go into a savings account rather than getting used to pay bills, now. Which would be nice.

Baseboards? I have baseboards?

I've not really seen much of my baseboards in months. We have so much clutter in this house .. usually because we have 3 people living in one-thousand square feet .. that we don't really see much of the baseboards. There's usually boxes and bags hiding them. Not permanently, but .. when one batch is tossed or moved to a proper place .. a new batch takes its place.

Jason and I spent today .. or at least the biggest part of it .. working more on cleaning. The gods awful pile of 'stuff' that had accumulated in front of the bookcase is now completely gone. A box is waiting to be donated to goodwill or somewhere, and another to be brought with him to work. We have two bags of knitting and weaving and spinning stuff - fiber, tools, etc - and a small pile of pictures in frames that came off the mantle that I need to find homes for.

The biggest visible improvements are the refigerator, which is cleaned out completely save for what should be in there, and the kitchen. I can't take the credit for that though. jason's parents came by to bring me what was left of the Thanksgiving ham, and his mom started working in the kitchen. And didn't leave until I actually had counter space again. I didn't ask her to do it. Didn't even expect it. but it's done, and I'm really thankful for it. I have an easier time -keeping- the kitchen clean .. the whole house clean in fact .. when it's been cleaned thoroughly.

Ow my aching ... everything.

So, I realized that it's now after Thanksgiving, and after Thanksgiving means I need to start decorating. And since I never got around to decorating for the holidays last year, I really wanted to do it right this year.

So I started making room for the tree. In order to do that, I had to move -every piece- of furniture in the living room. Including lifting the tv to put it on top of the non-functional fireplace. But I think the new arrangement .. once all the clutter is gone .. will give us a lot more room.

When Jason got home ... after I told him he wasn't allowed to get mad for me moving everything around .. he helped me move his computer and stuff, and helped clean up a little. But now I can hardly move, so bed, I think, is in order. We're gonna try and clear out a buncha junk tomorrow, and maybe monday I can put the tree up. Hopefully, we left the lights on it. I don't really wanna re-string the lights.

Went in to Books-a-Million for one magazine ... came out with four. Always seems to work that way. but jason said it was silly to not buy them when one pattern can cost as much as a whole issue. So .. out I cam with Knit 'N Style, Interweave, Vogue and knit Simple for the holidays.

It's nice to know that starting now, I don't have to worry about ironing Jason's shirts every night. We finally took a bag of them to the cleaners, and from now on that's what we're gonna do. No more ironing every night, especially since I'm not good at it.

Chicken soup for dinner tonight. Jason and I are both getting colds I think .. which considering the crazy weather lately isn't very surprising. I probably should change the filters too. I've suddenly noticed they're both rather covered in a thick layer of dust. has it been that long already?

Deck the halls with boughs of haul-y!

Otherwise known as the requisite 'What I got for Christmas' post.

This year, as has become our tradition, we spent Christmas Eve at Brandon's house. There was an incredible amount of gifts under the tree, and we were all very excited to get to sleep so morning would come quickly. Of course, no one could sleep. We turned the TVs on to the 'Yule Log' show, which was literally a tv channel that was broadcasting video of a fireplace burning along with holiday music. Coolness!

We awoke that morning at 7:30am to Brandon chiming out 'Merry Christmas!!!' ... in his usual exuberant fashion, of course. We all hit the bathroom and then the extravaganza began. I must stress extravaganza because it took us 3 hours to finish with all the gifts. Of course, we take turns opening, because then we get to enjoy the experience.

I gave to my loving husband both seasons of Carnivale on dvd, a quick-change flyer and extra bobbins for both flyers (for his spinning wheel) and a nostepinne (an old fashioned ball winder), all stained to match his wheel, a Scene It dvd game, another dvd of Reba in concert doing South Pacific, candy for his stocking .. and that's all I can recall at the moment. Bradon received a clock radio (for his room at our house), flex-needles in 4 sizes he uses often, enough yarn from Elann.com to make himself a sweater .. and again I can't remember anything else. There was more .. but I'm blank. I'll have to look at the pictures to see if I can figure it out. Sassy got a rawhide house with rawhide treats in it, which was a huge hit with the little bundle of ruff to my great delight. Kathy much delighted in her felted tote which I finished in the nick of time .. ie, Christmas eve I was felting the strap and putting it together. And she of course loved the frames she got too. Johnny got books and a dvd from us, as well as a frame with picture of Kathy to keep with him in the truck.

I made out like a bandit. I received yarn in abundance, to make a coat (Llama/Wool), a sweater(Alpaca/Silk), a smoke ring (which is like a cowl but it functions as a hood too)(more Alpaca/Silk), a beaded bracelet kit (which doesn't use yarn exactly but it's still knitted), and hand-painted yarn which will probably become a shawl, but I've not decided yet. In addition to the yarn, I got the patterns for the coat, the sweater, the smoke ring, the bracelet, and about a half-dozen more patterns for socks and shawls all together in a binder. I also got two pairs of Lantern Moon Destiny circular needles, one of which I'm already using to work on a project I've wanted to work on for a while. I also got a knitting book, Domiknitrix. I got a few halloween themed things too - a little snuffer, a Limoge witch's hat, a silk scarf, a pumpkin-head doll to go with my pumpkin man statue, and a candle holder. I also got a pirate devil duckie for the bathtub *squee*. I got kitchen-y stuff too - a mini cuisinart, a set of stone mixing bowls, a chocolate fondue fountain, and a deep fryer. The fryer was really to both Jason and I, but it's still a kitchen thing, so I'm counting it. Oh yeah, and I got beautiful snowflake earrings, and a hand-made quilted tree skirt that will go with our blue & white theme when we go back to it, the new Loreena McKennit cd, and my 2007 Witch's Calendar.

So .. yeah. I got spoiled rotten. Not all of it was strictly for me, but a lot of it was, and I feel incredibly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. Oh yeah, and all of this is before we have our christmas with Neely and with momma & diddy.