Tangled Threads and Seaweed

TGIF

Its been a long week. I am so glad its over. We had a slow, slow week at work, and I am not good at looking busy. I'm not a pencil-pusher or a paper-shuffler. I didn't realize how the slowdown of the economy could affect a chemical company, but we're involved in the auto-related industries among other things, so obviously its in a downturn. Hopefully next week will be better.  

Dog Hair!

I am SO TIRED of dog hair. OMG. It is everywhere. I have to brush my chair every day, I sweep, I groom the dogs (and the cat) every day, and still.  It floats in the air, settling in places that I don't want it to be. 

I washed my hand-knit socks tonight and they all have some black dog hairs in them! Grrr. I try to never walk on the carpets in my socks so I don't pick up hair on the socks. I'm irked anyway because I don't think my washer spins the water out of my socks well enough. It takes a couple days for them to air dry. So tonight, I made sure they were rinsed well, and put the superwash socks in the dryer on low for 20 minutes, and the  100% merino socks are hanging on a rack in the bathroom to dry. By the way, that makes me just a bit testy too, because I NEVER use heat (in the washer) and I never dry my 100% merino socks in the dryer, yet two pairs of them have shrunk to the point of being marginally too small.

Can you tell I'm just a big ol' cranky pants tonight? 

I'm tired of cold weather, tired of big electric bills, tired of my husband being gone (he'll be home late, late tonight), tired of not eating real food (who cooks just for themself?), tired of trying to balance the checkbook, tired of not being able to go out with the dogs (cold and windy), tired of getting error messages when I boot up my computer (ever since the last Windows critical update was installed) (thankyouverymuch Bill Gates), tired of thinking about my job when I'm trying to go to sleep at night (after just 3 days back at work!), tired of not wanting to knit (and I pride myself on never being "bored"), and tired of there never being enough hours in the day to do everything. And I am tired of DOG HAIR.

As my sister says, "I don't want solutions, I just want some sympathy...."  

Don't worry - tomorrow I'll be fine. Its not PMS, its just grumpy-ness! 

Don't Make Assumptions...

So, do you ever know what you want to say, but not quite how to say it?  That's my problem today. If I was to just spit it out, I'd say "my supervisor is a boob". Basically - that covers it.  Not very nice, not PC at all, but... truth hurts sometimes.

Including me, there are four women who work for him. Without getting technical (because our work really is very technical), I'll just say we encountered an issue today involving two computer systems not communicating and were brainstorming in one woman's office about how to: a) quickly resolve the situation so we could proceed with what we needed to do, and b) identify a long-term solution so we could present it to our supervisor. The four of us were being pretty vocal about our points of view, but it was going well and we were making progress, including making a couple of calls on the speakerphone to talk to some technical people about the process. Eventually, we got everything worked out and went back to our work areas.

Even though he brags to other team leaders about how "his team" is self-directed and he never has to tell us what to do, it must not have entered his mind that we could problem-solve on our own.  He just had to go talk to one of the other women and make a snarky comment about how "we ought to be more careful about having a hen-party during working hours". WTF? You thought we were playing??? Totally uncalled-for.  We never do that, not to mention the fact that we come in early, work through breaks, stay late, cover each other's jobs (all of our jobs are unique - its not like all 4 of us do the same thing), and between the four of us we have 28 years, 21 years, 19 years, and 16 years of experience in this very department... so we do have the skills and knowledge to figure out how to fix a problem.

And don't get me started about the sexist "hen party" remark.

He got straightened out pretty quick by the lady he made that remark to, but it was overheard by a couple other people, so he ended up embarrassed and avoided us for the remainder of the day.

Even though I was irked about his lack of confidence in us, I'm not mentioning it again. Actions speak louder than words. 

I baked a chocolate cake tonight, and I'm taking it to work tomorrow. Maybe that will soothe some feelings. The piece I ate for supper made me feel pretty good!  :)

I Made it Through Monday!

Thanks to everyone who sympathized with my illness yesterday! I made it through the night and had a good day at work today. Seems like the jello and yogurt did the trick yesterday.  :)

This is what we had to deal with today:

yeah, compared to a lot of places in the country, its nothing, right? Sorry 'bout that, but this is our first (maybe only?) snowfall of the year. We normally get a couple of good (3"-5") snowfalls each winter but its been kinda dry here this year. We really need some moisture, be it snow or rain. And its darn cold! 11 degrees this morning. Brrrrr!

I'm still working on the neverending Blackrose socks. I'm nearly to the heel. Once I turn the heel, it feels like I'm home free, but until then it seems to take For-Ever. Yesterday was supposed to be a knitting day instead of a sick day. But I'm determined to finish this pair this week, so I'll be knitting tonight while watching TV. (HGTV - I'm not interested in anything on network TV tonight, and I'm tired of watching House. Its been getting kinda weird between House and Dr. Cuddy, and I miss Wilson.)

OK, then, that's it. Go forth and make beautiful things!

Sicker Than A Dog

ohmyfreakingod.

I didn't tell y'all about the supper meal we ate yesterday, mostly because I was embarrassed I at so much. Well, that came back to bite me. 

We ate at a burger place (bar & grill) and I had a cheeseburger that was made with 1/2 pound of meat. Disgraceful. Its one of those places that still lets you choose how your meat is cooked, so I asked for medium-rare, because I hate a burnt piece of meat. In addition, it was a "california" burger so it had guacomole and sour cream on it, as well as grilled onions and lettuce and tomatoes. (its making me heave just thinking about it) Oh we also split an order of hand-cut cheese fries too. Ugh. And I had 2 beers. I could barely move when we were done eating. But it was so gooood! :)

About 10:00 last night, I started having stomach pangs and gas, and spent the whole night in the bathroom, both ends going. I was sick most of today as well, but I've managed to down a couple of diet cokes and some Activia yogurt. I haven't been this sick in a long, long, long time and I couldn't find any Immodium or any Pepto-Bismol in the house, so I just suffered and slept. Ugh.

I don't know if it was:
a) a 24-hour stomach bug
b) food poisoning
c) my body rejecting all that greasy food because I don't have a gall-bladder to help digest. 

I'm personally betting on "c" because I've had a couple of minor disturbances after eating certain things, but it could have been "b". Either way, I've been eating light long enough to know better than to pig out like that. Its like when you get old enough to decide having a hangover isn't worth the partying. (that decision was made a LONG time ago) The discomfort and resulting activities are a sure deterrent to eating like that!

Blech.

Saturday Stuff

We spent the day running errands and shopping. Its been a long time since we've gone to the city to actually "shop". Joe had some business to take care of at the dive shop. He's going to Dallas next week for some training and there was paperwork to fill out.

We went to World Market and bought wine, pasta, and some Indian cooking sauces. I love World Market - they have such a variety of cool stuff. We wandered around Petco, just looking at everything. I cannot believe the variety of dog and cat foods out there. We watched a dog training class while we were there - I would say they were all puppies but they may have all just been small dogs. Their owners were all young women and girls. I thought about buying a new grooming brush for our cat but decided not to. She's needing more frequent brushings as she gets older; I guess she doesn't groom herself as well as she used to because she seems to be more matted lately. I've been working on her coat every day though. I just don't want to spend the money on a Furminator for a 15+ year old cat. I hope that doesn't make me evil!  

We also went grocery shopping at the super Wal-Mart. I dislike shopping at Wal-Mart but they have things I can't get at home, and other things that cost less than the stores at home. I don't like shopping in big crowds, and I hate trying to shop when the stockers leave those big pallet jacks in the aisles. But I got the things I was looking for and was out of there within an hour. 

I got a good bit of knitting on the Blackrose sock done while we were in the car. I've got almost all of the leg finished now - I should have this one completed sometime next week.

Back to Work

Today I returned to work. It was ok - I didn't get tired or have a bad day. I actually spent the day catching up on my overdue computer-based safety training. (I was off work for 3 months) I had plenty of time so I did all the computer-based training modules for 2009 as well! My worst problem was getting my passwords reset for my network access. They all expire after 60 days and I didn't remember my old passwords... so I had to get the IT Helpdesk involved. That took some time to get processed.  Monday I'll begin doing my own work again. 

My little ol' doggies sure did miss me today! They've been all over me this evening. They must have been really lonely.

Funny Stuff

While I was blog surfing today, I ran across a funny (embarrassing) story at Country Doctor's Wife and I thought I'd go ahead and share an embarrassing memory with y'all. I mean, it can't be knitting and dogs all the time, right?

This happened a long, long time ago. For some reason I was showering and dressing mid-day (I'm guessing I wasn't working at the time - I can't remember why I would have been doing this unless I was going somewhere special). I had rolled my hair in hot-rollers and before putting on my turtleneck top, I put a pair of nylon granny-panties over my hot rollers so the rollers wouldn't snag on my top. I then commenced to putting on my makeup before putting in my contact lenses. At some point someone knocked at the door and I slapped my glasses on to go see who was there. It was the Amway man and so we talked for a few minutes and then I went back to the bathroom to finish up. OMYGOD. I looked in the mirror and I had PANTIES on my head!!!!!! For real. And the Amway man never said a word.  

 

You want more? I was kinda naive when my hubby married me - I was only 17, and had led a pretty sheltered life. We bought a new Thunderbird and I got so frustrated because the big ol' doors would swing shut and hit me when I was getting out of the car in our driveway. (it was on a slight slope... but I thought the doors should stay open) 

I was complaining to my husband about it one day when we were going somewhere and he remarked that we should have picked a different vehicle, one that didn't have automatic door-closers on it. So I quit griping about it. Just a day or two later we went to Target and parked way out in the parking lot so we didn't get door-dings on our new car. I got out and started walking to the entrance of the store. Hubby hollered at me to come back and shut my car door. I turned around and told him that the auto door closer would get it, right? He's looking at me like, what the hell??? And then he remembered telling me that and started laughing and was stunned that I had believed him! I was stunned that he would LIE to me! 

Thirty one years later, I still have a hard time figuring out if he's pulling my leg.

 

What a Day!

I got up early and spent the whole day watching the inaugural activities. Wow, there was a lot of stuff going on! I loved Michelle Obama's dress and coat outfit. I was very happy to see all the politicos speaking nicely to each other during the activities. I'm amazed the whole thing has gone off without a hitch - or at least that we the people are aware of.  It was incredible to see so many people gathered to experience this day. I was especially glad to see and hear so many prayers offered up for the health of the first family and for knowledge and wisdom as he assumes the leadership of the country. Now if the congress and senate will work together, maybe our President can bring his campaign promises to fruition. Like many others, I have hope.

I will always remember this day. The last inauguration I watched was President Reagan's, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I feel like I should say something remarkable, but I don't know how to put it into words. In my heart, I know this was an incredibly special day.

While watching the parade, I finished my first Blackrose sock.

This one also has an Eye of Partridge Heel - it looks nice and is very sturdy.

I've already got the second sock started - an inch of cuff is finished and I'm ready to start knitting the patterned part. I want to finish this pair of socks this month - so I better get back to knitting!

Happy New Year 2009

Wow - I can't believe its 2009. I remember thinking the 2000's were just an unbelievable date "way out there". Then we were preparing for the (un)disaster of the arrival of the millenium... and here we are 9 years later! Incredible.

My apologies to everyone who left such kind comments on my Survivor post. I think I've e-mailed you all to thank you personally this evening. It was one of those goofy computer things... I don't download my e-mail with any program like Outlook; I use the web-based e-mail box at yahoo which came with my sbcglobal account.  (I like being able to keep up with my e-mail from work, etc.) So I wasn't seeing any notifications from Typepad and had no idea anyone was reading my blog and commenting... until I had an e-mail from Deb at Cold Feet Quilter who made me aware of it.  (Thanks Deb! Love ya!) OMG - all those notifications were in my spam box. (along with some other stuff I was wondering about...) so I've cleaned out the spam box and I am so pumped up that y'all had so many nice things to say!!! It is encouraging to know that other people are out there propping me up with prayer and "atta girl"s. Thank you!!!  ((hugs))

So, with the New Year, did you make any resolutions? I heard someone (one of the talking heads in the media) say today that resolutions are just things you know you should have already been doing... well, yeah. And saying it out loud just means you're taking ownership of it, right? Whatever. I think its good to set goals for yourself. I'm really not going anywhere with the idea - I don't have any specific goals/resolutions.  I am going to continue knitting every day possible, working on quilts (especially my mom's), and cooking.

Oh yeah, y'all don't know about the cooking thing.  Long story short, I quit cooking 12+ years ago when our older son died. Yeah, we basically ate out from that point on. Just know that when people are grieving, you do what you have to do to get through each day and I could not bear to stand at my stove, waiting for my son to come home from his after-school job and help me fix supper, knowing he was no longer coming home. We could afford to eat out and it was just easier. Fast forward to this October/November - we're going through the budget (again) and cutting expenses since we're living on just my income (waiting on Joe's SS disability hearing results). One of the things I did was ask my doctor to switch me to some generic meds instead of some of the stuff I was taking, which was costly even with insurance. So one of the meds was my antidepressant, and after about two weeks I was feeling so much BETTER than I had in a long time! I wanted to clean out the cabinets and the deep freezer, and cook some food.  Of course, the budget crunch was helping push us back into our kitchen, but I actually WANTED to do it and was excited about it. My sweet husband is a champ - he got right in there and helped me scrub the dust off my pans and toss the expired stuff in the cabinets. We shopped for the old favorites and then he became my cooking partner!  We are having a ball.  Here's what we fixed tonight:

   

(grilled jalapeno chicken breasts, linguini, and black eyed peas with cilantro.) Y'all did eat your peas for good luck today, right?  :) 

I also finished this sock today:

    

Its the "Basket Check Sock" pattern by Charlene Schurch and Beth Parrott published in the "Little Box of Socks" from Martingale Press. There's (I think) about 20 patterns printed on 5x8 card/folders in the box. Great for portable knitting! Look at that toe... I love to do the Kitchener stitch to graft that toe shut. :)  I have cast on its mate tonight - must fight Second Sock Syndrome!

Here's the other sock that I started in November and then set aside (so I could knit those Opal socks for my kids):

   

This is "Wasp Woman" (can you see the wing design on the leg? it needs to be blocked) designed by Heatherly Walker and published on Ravelry. Isn't that heel detail the cutest? Now I need to get sock #2 knitted. It really drives me bonkers to have an unfinished pair of socks.  UFO quilt projects don't bother me at all but knitting projects - ugh - I am driven to finish them. It makes me anxious to have several knitting things started and not know what to work on first. Isn't that funny? Maybe its because I love wearing my socks so much. Anyway I've got the 2nd sock cast on and a couple rows of cuff knitted. As soon as the basket check sock is done, this one's next. I really fooled around with needle sizes while knitting these (my leg is um, shapely. Yeah.) trying to knit a cuff that didn't stretch out over my calf but was fitting in the ankle, and my foot is short and slightly wide...so I used 3s on the leg, 2's on the ankle, 1's on the heel flap (because it is rather large and doesn't draw in with that pattern) then back to 2s for the foot. I may have used a 1.5 for the toe - need to check my notes. By some miracle, the sock actually fits pretty nicely!  Whatta lotta work, though.

OK, I think that's probably enough for one evening. Hope everyone had a lovely New Years' Eve and a pleasant day today. We've been watching bowl games, and I need to get back to this sock. Y'all take care!