Pay Day

Thank you, President Obama, for my $38 pay increase this month. It's just in time to pay for the increase in the cost of our health insurance. Since those of us who work in public education in this state won't get pay raises, or even step increases, this coming year, that $38 less that we're paying in taxes is going to be a biiiiiig help.

Unmotivated Monday

What is so freaking exhausting about Mondays? I slept well this weekend, and lots of it. Here I am dragging.

Tom and I watched Twilight on Saturday. He wasn't impressed; it was too slow and there was no story to it. I watched the first half through his eyes (and I totally understand his point of view; if I weren't female and drawn to this type of story in the first place, I wouldn't have cared about it), but he fell asleep about halfway through and I got drawn (you might say sucked) into the movie. Loved it. I want to watch it again and again and again...... God help me.

I've been haunting etsy.com, looking at Twilight-related merchandise. Go over there and enter twilight into the search (search all) and marvel--and snicker--at all the unbelievable crap stuff they have. Some things are totally unique (jewelry and yarn, stickers, etc) and some are just odd.

I found some yarn. Check christinamariepotter and see her yarn. Eventually I'll link it here, but I have to go work in Power Hour now. Anyway, Friday afternoon I ordered some Twilight worsted for a hat and neckwarmer and fingering for socks, all red, black, and white. Then, from another etsy artist, I ordered some All That Glitters sock yarn (with 2% silver!) for socks or a shawl. She didn't have it in the colors I wanted, so I asked her if she'd be open to a special order of blood and black. Edward sparkles, you know. And she's making some specially for me! Check out yarnlust at etsy. She also has some cashmere sock yarn.......

Gotta run!

T-Day, for real

It was delivered today. Yes, boys and girls, Saturday is officially Twilight Day.

Mark it on your calendar. Or not, it's up to you.

I may not have to kill Target after all.

About that movie...

Target is no longer my BFF.

Maybe I misunderstood. I was going to buy Twilight from Amazon; it included a free 24-hour rental of the movie on the 21st. Maybe I thought that's what Target was offering, but a free download rather than the rental.

So Saturday I checked my email, looking for a link to the download. Wasn't there. I called Target's "customer service"; the woman, who spoke broken English, had no idea what I was talking about. I told her twice that the only reason I bought the movie from Target was to get the free download; otherwise I would have gotten it from Walmart for the same price (so they offered one dvd instead of three. Big deal.) She offered to transfer me to "manufacturing", but she discovered that they are only available Monday through Friday.

Oddly, I wasn't upset that I couldn't watch the movie this weekend. That really didn't bother me. What irritates the crap out of me is that 1) "customer service" offers no service whatsoever, and 2) why bother to order the movie, which won't be delivered before the end of the week, in order to get the download if I have to have the movie in hand before I can access the download? I could have just waited and gone into a store today and bought the damn thing outright.

I could have "rented" the movie from iTunes for $2.99, which is probably what they wanted all along. I bet that a lot of drooling lovestruck girls people did just that.

Now I have to take more of my time to call Target again and complain. I hate that. I hate using the telephone to start with.

Target, you're on notice.

White doe

My brother-in-law saw these deer in a field this weekend. The albino is much whiter than our Bambi was; he was half-white, half-brown.

Thanks, Scott! I'm glad you got a photo of her.

Tomorrow is

T-Day!


And spring? Yeah. It's 45 here. Wake me up when it's warm.

Look!------------>

Only one more day till spring!

What will I count down to next? Retirement? That would be a depressing number of days.

Target is my new BFF

Last week I pre-ordered Twilight, The Movie from Target because they offer a free download the day the movie is released (midnight Saturday morning, in case you're counting). I was happy enough to pay $22.99, since that free download is a pretty good incentive (Amazon offers a free "rental" for 24 hours), especially since I have a $25 gift card.

Yesterday I got an email from Target announcing that the price on the movie had dropped $5, so they're passing the savings on to me.

Pretty cool.

Found, one book

I was wrong. Tom was right.

Twilight was never on the bookselves in our bedroom. I read that a couple of months before he moved the bookshelf into the room. I found Twilight while I was searching for....oh yeah, Twilight. I spend about half of my time at home searching for one thing or another because Tom has this...thing...for putting things away, not leaving them in piles as I like to do.

Anyway, it was in a box with other books I'd gotten as part of this Teacher Reads thing at school. I hadn't looked in there before; all I saw in it were some balls of yarn and some books I didn't want right then.

One bonus of this search is that I found the pattern to my coral bamboo Tropical Tee that I started back in the summer. I hadn't worked on it since September, and the pattern was, of course, separated from the part I'd finished and the rest of the yarn. I'm knitting it in the round, and I'd finished from the bottom to the armholes. Over the weekend I knit the back from there and started (and got a good bit done) on the front.

At some point last week, I ran across the remaining yarn for the top. Now, of course, I can't remember where I saw it. I'm down to the last ball and I need it soon.

I guess I need to go back into that room and search some more.

How crazy am I?

Have you seen Knitty's new Shipwreck Shawl? Go look; I'll wait.

*hums tunelessly*

*ducks book thrown*

Just how much of a masochist am I? I whined and bitched the whole way through my Endless Test Knit Shawl for Claudia last summer; do I really want to try to knit yet another endless shawl--this one with 5000 tiny glass beads??? Each having to be prestrung by me?

Yes. Yes, I do want that shawl.

It's knit with Knitpicks Bare sock yarn (silk, yet), which is pretty inexpensive, then hand-dyed a faded deep blue. I'm not a shawl person, but oh, this one is so pretty.

I've been floundering this week with that damned DST crap and haven't been able to find both the patterns and the yarn for something that I'd like to knit. Last night I finally pulled out a "ballet" slipper (felted) pattern and started knitting a pair with some of my freebie Claudia yarn. I'm not terribly enthusiastic about that project, but it'll do for now.

Oh my. What to do.

And does anyone know where I could have put my copy of Twilight? I searched for it last night and it's nowhere. I'm driving Tom crazy.

How I spent most of my morning OR I caved

I just preordered this. Yes, I caved.

After finishing Breaking Dawn Friday night, I've been.....unsettled. I'm having a hard time reading normal books, books that I usually love: funny books (not comics, just humorous stuff), detective/murder/mystery books, or in the case of Tim Dorsey's books, funny/detective/murder/mystery books.

I'm sort-of semi-enthusiastically reading Hissy Fit by Mary Kay Andrews, writer of Savannah Blues, which I loved. It's entertaining, but damn, I need some Twilight.

But I can't find it anywhere. It's driving me crazy. I put that book on the shelf in our bedroom when I finished reading it months ago, and I have not touched it. That I remember. I borrowed and read New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn in the last three weeks (actually, a kid loaned me Breaking Dawn in January, but I had to wait to borrow and read the other two before I got to that one) (hmmm, I need to find out just who that kid is and give it back to him) (maybe), and I know that Twilight was on that bookshelf while I was reading them.

Where did I put it? I probably picked it up during one of my Ambien Ambles, possibly Friday night as I lay in bed thinking about the series and "fell asleep". But where did I put it? I've looked everywhere that I can think I may have left it. Under the couch, under the headboard of the bed, on other bookshelves, in the pile of my stuff in the bedroom and the box (of my stuff) that I'm supposed to have put away, etc. I cannot find it. I don't want to buy another one; the first was a gift from the library, and I'd only read it once, and I don't want to have to buy that one plus the other three.

(I know. Tom's reading it but he doesn't want me to know that he's reading a girly-vampire-werewolf-romance-bodice-ripper.)

I saw that Costco has the set of four hardbacks for $46, which is a bargain if you like hardbacks, but I really like the big paperbacks. They're easier for me to handle and to hold on to with one hand when I'm eating (yet another reason that my weight isn't dropping). That size paperback opens so easily, and I don't have to crack the spine (which drives Tom crazy) to hold it open. I've got delicate wrists; it hurts to hold those things open.

So I decided that I have to own the movie, since I'm not going to rent it, and iTunes will charge $15 for the download. I googled "Twilight dvd" and found a site (which I cannot remember; maybe Twilight Lexicon ? (As we all know, I'm far too lazy to check that link out before I post this, so it'll have to wait a while.) If I don't like it, I can give it away. (Maybe a Twilight contest?) Or sell it. Although I imagine that everyone who wants it will have it by the time I get it.

But wait--there's more. I chose the Target one because it comes with a "free" iTunes download available on March 21, the day the movie is released on dvd (as if you didn't already know that, duh). Amazon has a 24-hour rental-download, but 24 hours might not be enough. What if I really like it and want to watch it again before it's delivered (between March 26 and 30, supposedly)? Amazon's costs the same, and Target's comes with a third dvd of videos and stuff) (which will, no doubt, all be available on YouTube by 12:31 a.m. on the 21st).

AND, even better, one of my sisters gave me a $25 Target gift card for Christmas, which I keep forgetting about, so I still have it. Or did. It ended up costing about $2.

It wasn't an easy thing to order. The website kept kicking me back to the sign-in page when I tried to check out, or it told me that there were no items in my cart, or there were 3 items in my cart, or some such nonsense. I ended up calling their customer service number; a very nice lady (Dawn, I think) placed the order for me, assuring me that the website is not usually that difficult to use.

So we all know what I'll be doing on Saturday, March 21.

After I sleep till noon, that is.

Contest alerts

First, Kadezmom is having a contest. She wants to know what spring means to you.

Knit Purl Gurl is giving away some cool Knit Witch yarn and a beautiful yarn bowl.

Please check 'em out, enter, and tell them I sent you! (Thanks to Georgi for heading me their way.)

Guess where we are my ass

That worked well.

I took a picture of the US Capitol building as we went through DC last night on the way to Annapolis, MD, but obviously Ntelos lied when it said it went through. Stupid Ntelos anyway.

As we drove past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, we saw a large camera crew filming or getting ready to film something. There were people dressed alike in black jackets, pants and turtlenecks (shoes too, and probably underwear) all over the place; whether they were actors, extras, or crew, we don't know. They had one of those car-haulers with a camera looking back at the car. Maybe 24 since that's in Washington this season, or Bones, or some movie or other tv show, ad, whatever. If Jack Bauer was there, we didn't see him.

Wouldn't that be cool, though, to go to DC for some sightseeing (it's just a couple of hours from here) see a crew filming something that you actually watch at home on tv or the computer?

So, anyway, we went to Annapolis to see/hear Robert Earl Keen, an Americana/alt country singer/songwriter. We got to the Ramshead Inn? Tavern? a little after 6 and had dinner with Tom's sister, Penny, then went to the show (in the same building). It's too big for me; I think it seats around 300, and the tables were tiny and too close together. There were many idiots who became stupider as the beer went on who whooped and hollered requests during the whole show. One stupid drunk girl danced when "her" song was played; she was so out of it that she couldn't keep time with the music, but she sure thought that she was hot. The guy sitting behind Tom got louder as he drank and kept shouting out the name of some song that nobody recognized and that Keen ignored. Many women texted through the show; at one point Keen asked one to text his friend. It was really really pathetic. You pay $50 each to see this show, then you get smashed, talk loudly, shout, and text throughout it? The show was good, though, but I didn't sleep a bit on the way home (a four-hour drive). My legs get too restless on a long drive and I can't sleep anymore.

We got home around 2 and I couldn't go to sleep. I didn't sleep much Sunday night, either, and it was around 3:30 when I finally drifted off this morning, only to get up at 6:30. I'm cutting back on ambien (and didn't take any last night), so I'm not sleeping as well, but I'm tired of reading for hours during the night, being worn out, and not remembering a thing I read. Plus I tend to eat while I'm reading. No wonder I haven't lost any more weight.

Did I mention that I hate losing that hour in the spring?

"Spring forward" my ass, OR My annual rant against Daylight Savings Time

Enough.

the end

Wow.

*wipes tears*

A bit of a cushion

Tom sold his old Porsche yesterday.

This is good because it'll pay the bills and possibly allow a down-payment on a house in Florida.

It's bad because Tom's had the car for about 40 years and was slowly restoring it. He's really been looking forward to driving it again.

I wish he could have driven it.

We are not happy

with the way that Breaking Dawn is going. Should I just quit reading while I still like the book, although I know that I'll eventually find out what happens on some web site? Or keep reading and end up hating the ending? Do I want to know that badly? I have a very bad feeling that I don't want to know how it ends. It's called "foreshadowing".

See, I remember some things from school. Just not anything to do with math.

Although yesterday I was able to help a couple of kids with their algebra. That's happened twice in the last couple of weeks. Amazing. Something must be rubbing off. I get so excited when I can actually help them with math; they think I'm crazy.

They're right.

I am weak

Breaking Dawn

Bella--Edward--Jacob--Renesmee--wtf??? No wonder people say this is the best book of the series!

In case someone who's reading the series ends up here, I won't give any spoilers. I will, though, encourage you to keep slogging through two and three when they're tedious, because four is unbelievable.

Literally.

It's almost spring?

In the Arctic Circle, maybe, but here it was under 8 last night. I just didn't have it in me to check the thermometer after that.

We didn't get any snow in our neck of the woods, but the city got enough that school was cancelled yesterday. We'll make up for it on Friday, but since I would have had to be here anyway, I'm not unhappy about it.

I just could not get warm last night. My ankles were freezing. Why didn't I wear my nice, warm legwarmers? I haven't knit in the ends, and it was too freaking cold to do that. I spent the day reading breaking dawn, book 4 of the twilight series. It's so much better than books 2 and 3, but I still can't quite figure out why I keep reading them.

I ripped out my neckwarmer on Sunday and started knitting another one. The bottom of it kept rolling up under my chin, and it was bothering me, so I just had to rip it out. That meant that I didn't have it this morning when I really really needed it. This one should be good and warm, though, if I ever finish it. The yarn is doubled in this one; I'm hoping that I'll have enough to finish it. If that happens, though, I refuse to start over; I'll attach another color and keep going. It's not for looks anyway. It's the Swirl Neckwarmer and it's turning out to be nice and thick. It's hurting my hands, though, because chunky yarn doubled is tough knitting. I don't think I'll try that again.

Or frog my neckwarmer on the coldest damn day of the year.

The state has decided--for now, at least--not to offer early retirement buyouts. If I can make it through two more winters, maybe, just maybe we'll be able to spend the rest of our winters in Florida. Summers, too, but I'm all for that.