Oy with the Vey, already!
My life is moving along at a somewhat ridiculous pace, and my blogging has suffered as a result. In the end, it's probably ME who suffers, because blogging is a nice outlet for me.
At any rate, this is a catch-up post; read at your own peril (as in, if you fall asleep on your keyboard and wake up with a J imprinted on your forehead, I take no responsibility!).
The Job
Hoo doggies, do I love my newest job. Many moons ago, I posted that I'd left my employer to start my own business. I did this, and with enough success that I was still bringing home about the same amount of money as when I was working for The Man, or in my case, The Terrible Woman Who Had A Troubled Relationship With The Truth, And Wanted Me To Lie To The Auditor.
Anyway, a few months back, I went from being pretty busy to being run right off my feet, when I accepted a part-time position at a local non-profit. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say it's both challenging AND rewarding, and even though I was hesitant to work for someone other than myself, I'm exceptionally happy to go to work in the morning.
The Dog
Her name is Pepper. I love her to bits and want to nom her floppy ears, but I also secretly want to clean her teeth with The Hotness' toothbrush, because seriously, at 1:00AM, when his dog starts to whine to go out, I KNOW he can hear her, but he'll just lay there quietly, waiting for ME to get out of bed and let her out, and that's making me a bit resentful and passive-aggressive - he's had nothing but breakfast food for supper for, like two weeks. Bacon soothes my savage breast.
At any rate, she's ridiculously cute, but also REALLY stupid. I bought her a stuffed duck the first day that we got her, and from the very first night, I've been training her that This Is Your Duck, and to Go Get The Duck. She's probably heard both The Hotness and I say "Duck, Duck, Go Get The Duck!" about nine thousand times since we got the thing, but she still doesn't connect the word "duck" with the stuffed toy.
Her manners are improving, though; she's pretty much housebroken unless The Hotness totally misses it. Like last night, when I was working in my office and he was playing Socom on the Playstation, and she peed on the couch two feet away from him because he got all wrapped up in his game and forgot to let her out.
Also, the hidden cost of owning Pepper is tallying up fast.
The Hotness' brand new glasses: $200.00
The Hotness' brand new cell phone: $600.00
The Hotness' replacement cell phone: $150.00 (repair bill)
The Hotness' fancy Playstation charging cable: $49.99
The living room coffee table: $189.00
She also has found an accomplice in Dinger The Deaf Wonder Cat. The two of them are remarkably good friends, and somehow or other, though Pepper isn't smart enough to Go Get The Duck, she has found some way to instruct Dinger to climb onto the kitchen table and kitchen counters, and knock things off so that she, Pepper, can drag them throughout the house and chew them up. We did a sweep to make sure that anything small enough to actually be swallowed was out of their reach, but even if she doesn't manage to swallow something totally inappropriate, I see a huge dental bill in my future.
The Wedding
Last night, I had my first wedding dream/nightmare. I dreamed that it was a week to my wedding, and I was just starting the planning, and that I was too fat to fit into my dress, so I had to sew a new one from scratch. I was sitting at my sewing machine with my BlackBerry taped to my head, sewing and weeping while I used voice dial to call caterers and beg for perogies. I woke up with a wicked facial twitch, and have decided that it's time to pull out that stupid wedding book and start making some actual plans.
Christmas Shopping
Ha. This is an easy one. My family doesn't do a gift exchange; I stuff money in envelopes and take each of my nieces for a shopping trip to spend it, because they're teenage girls and say what you want, but teenage girls, no matter how kind and sweet and wonderful, would rather have cash.
The Hotness' family, on the other hand, has a complex set of Christmas rules, the clearest of which involves the mandatory spending of $50.00 plus tax on each person. When we were just a bunch of couples, this was kind of fair, but now that each of his brothers has two children, it's gotten pretty expensive. After the first year, I begged out, and told The Hotness that he is solely and completely responsible for selecting gifts for his family, and monitoring the spending, and the whole nine yards.
I won't even pick things up for him anymore, because two years ago, he made a huge fuss over making sure that we got a copy of this one kid's movie, so he called me long distance and made me stay on the phone with him while I got in my car, went to the video store, located and purchased a copy of the movie.
Then on Christmas day, he was shocked and disappointed to "discover" that I had purchased the movie "without telling him", because he ALSO bought a copy, and obviously I was the crazy one. He had no recollection of the phone call, and I had to bust out a copy of my cell phone bill to convince him that there'd even BEEN a 45 minute long distance cell phone call. And even after seeing the bill, he was pretty sure we'd talked about something else, even though I also produced the receipt that showed that the time and date of the purchase was the same as the date and time of the call.
Sooo.... with one thing and another, I only have one person to buy for; The Hotness himself. And I'm all finished, except for a few stocking stuffers.
Sewing
Yeah, if I've had no time to blog, I've had no time to sew.
A couple weeks ago, I made a creditable attempt at making Pepper a dog bed. There's a big fluffy pillow in her crate, so I figured I'd sew a simple oversized pillowcase for it, and around three sides, I'd attach a hollow tube with some fluffy fill in it so she could lean against it; she's kind of a leaner.
Unfortunately, I sewed the pillowcase completely shut, and sewed the tube wrong sides together and with the ends sewn shut, so that when I tried to turn it right side out... Well, imagine turning a sock inside out, sewing the top shut, and then trying to turn it back the right way.
The worst part was that just in the split second that I realized that I'd made a couple of mistakes, The Hotness poked his head in and asked how it was going. I'm a very poor liar, so he's STILL laughing at me, and it's been three weeks.
Since the mishap with the dog bed, I've avoided my sewing room as though there's a hungry giant in there. Don't get me wrong, I'm YEARNING to go in there and make things happen, but this is the wrong time of year for me to get all involved in a project, only to leave it behind when we go away for Christmas.
I've run out of both things to say and time to say them. Next post, I'll share some pictures of some of my more notable knitting failures.
At any rate, this is a catch-up post; read at your own peril (as in, if you fall asleep on your keyboard and wake up with a J imprinted on your forehead, I take no responsibility!).
The Job
Hoo doggies, do I love my newest job. Many moons ago, I posted that I'd left my employer to start my own business. I did this, and with enough success that I was still bringing home about the same amount of money as when I was working for The Man, or in my case, The Terrible Woman Who Had A Troubled Relationship With The Truth, And Wanted Me To Lie To The Auditor.
Anyway, a few months back, I went from being pretty busy to being run right off my feet, when I accepted a part-time position at a local non-profit. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say it's both challenging AND rewarding, and even though I was hesitant to work for someone other than myself, I'm exceptionally happy to go to work in the morning.
The Dog
Her name is Pepper. I love her to bits and want to nom her floppy ears, but I also secretly want to clean her teeth with The Hotness' toothbrush, because seriously, at 1:00AM, when his dog starts to whine to go out, I KNOW he can hear her, but he'll just lay there quietly, waiting for ME to get out of bed and let her out, and that's making me a bit resentful and passive-aggressive - he's had nothing but breakfast food for supper for, like two weeks. Bacon soothes my savage breast.
At any rate, she's ridiculously cute, but also REALLY stupid. I bought her a stuffed duck the first day that we got her, and from the very first night, I've been training her that This Is Your Duck, and to Go Get The Duck. She's probably heard both The Hotness and I say "Duck, Duck, Go Get The Duck!" about nine thousand times since we got the thing, but she still doesn't connect the word "duck" with the stuffed toy.
Her manners are improving, though; she's pretty much housebroken unless The Hotness totally misses it. Like last night, when I was working in my office and he was playing Socom on the Playstation, and she peed on the couch two feet away from him because he got all wrapped up in his game and forgot to let her out.
The Hotness' brand new glasses: $200.00
The Hotness' brand new cell phone: $600.00
The Hotness' replacement cell phone: $150.00 (repair bill)
The Hotness' fancy Playstation charging cable: $49.99
The living room coffee table: $189.00
She also has found an accomplice in Dinger The Deaf Wonder Cat. The two of them are remarkably good friends, and somehow or other, though Pepper isn't smart enough to Go Get The Duck, she has found some way to instruct Dinger to climb onto the kitchen table and kitchen counters, and knock things off so that she, Pepper, can drag them throughout the house and chew them up. We did a sweep to make sure that anything small enough to actually be swallowed was out of their reach, but even if she doesn't manage to swallow something totally inappropriate, I see a huge dental bill in my future.
The Wedding
Last night, I had my first wedding dream/nightmare. I dreamed that it was a week to my wedding, and I was just starting the planning, and that I was too fat to fit into my dress, so I had to sew a new one from scratch. I was sitting at my sewing machine with my BlackBerry taped to my head, sewing and weeping while I used voice dial to call caterers and beg for perogies. I woke up with a wicked facial twitch, and have decided that it's time to pull out that stupid wedding book and start making some actual plans.
Christmas Shopping
Ha. This is an easy one. My family doesn't do a gift exchange; I stuff money in envelopes and take each of my nieces for a shopping trip to spend it, because they're teenage girls and say what you want, but teenage girls, no matter how kind and sweet and wonderful, would rather have cash.
The Hotness' family, on the other hand, has a complex set of Christmas rules, the clearest of which involves the mandatory spending of $50.00 plus tax on each person. When we were just a bunch of couples, this was kind of fair, but now that each of his brothers has two children, it's gotten pretty expensive. After the first year, I begged out, and told The Hotness that he is solely and completely responsible for selecting gifts for his family, and monitoring the spending, and the whole nine yards.
I won't even pick things up for him anymore, because two years ago, he made a huge fuss over making sure that we got a copy of this one kid's movie, so he called me long distance and made me stay on the phone with him while I got in my car, went to the video store, located and purchased a copy of the movie.
Then on Christmas day, he was shocked and disappointed to "discover" that I had purchased the movie "without telling him", because he ALSO bought a copy, and obviously I was the crazy one. He had no recollection of the phone call, and I had to bust out a copy of my cell phone bill to convince him that there'd even BEEN a 45 minute long distance cell phone call. And even after seeing the bill, he was pretty sure we'd talked about something else, even though I also produced the receipt that showed that the time and date of the purchase was the same as the date and time of the call.
Sooo.... with one thing and another, I only have one person to buy for; The Hotness himself. And I'm all finished, except for a few stocking stuffers.
Sewing
Yeah, if I've had no time to blog, I've had no time to sew.
Unfortunately, I sewed the pillowcase completely shut, and sewed the tube wrong sides together and with the ends sewn shut, so that when I tried to turn it right side out... Well, imagine turning a sock inside out, sewing the top shut, and then trying to turn it back the right way.
The worst part was that just in the split second that I realized that I'd made a couple of mistakes, The Hotness poked his head in and asked how it was going. I'm a very poor liar, so he's STILL laughing at me, and it's been three weeks.
Since the mishap with the dog bed, I've avoided my sewing room as though there's a hungry giant in there. Don't get me wrong, I'm YEARNING to go in there and make things happen, but this is the wrong time of year for me to get all involved in a project, only to leave it behind when we go away for Christmas.
I've run out of both things to say and time to say them. Next post, I'll share some pictures of some of my more notable knitting failures.
No wonder you're tired! You've had a lot going on. Love the story of Christmas gifts.
Glad to see that you are back. Have a very Merry Christmas!!!
k
There is someone out there stealing everyone's sewing mojo. I also have had some major disasters lately. Sigh.
You never tell the truth about sewing - ever!
Love the dog stories, Men are all oblivious. Glad to see you are still alive and functioning. g
Always blame the pattern! My DH thinks that pattern companies are all run by incompetents who don't test the patterns/instructions before printing them..... ;)
Your pets sound adorable - expensive, but adorably cute.
Sounds like your hotness has selective hearing AND memory! I think no one really has any time right now, and I would love to just have 15 minutes to spend sewing!