I’m Beautiful Like Me.

I haven’t accomplished all the things I’d planned for myself to get done on Thursday, but I did manage to do a few things. We paid the necessary bills, vacuumed, dishes, garbage, the usual chores, got rid of that donation pile and hit the library. Best of all, I started some crafty projects! I’m working on an amigurumi pig in honor of Blog The Recession and I stumbled a really nifty tutorial for making an iPod cozy a while back and just so happened to have most of the materials required. My mom hooked me up with the one material I didn’t have. I’m feeling the crafty love once again! I’ll post pictures when everything is finished.

Things I didn’t get done: laundry folding (no surprise there), zucchini bread (we’re out of eggs), and Husband has not - as of yet - gotten his job back. It is so frustrating to feel so helpless. The company that provided the inaccurate background check to the staffing agency has stated to Husband that they legally have 30 days to rectify the inaccuracies and will likely take every last one of those 30 days. In the meantime, we are hoping that the certified copies coming from the County Clerk’s office will be sufficient for the staffing agency to get Husband back on the job where they placed him. Otherwise, he will have to either look for work elsewhere or take a lower paying job. Forget getting anything good for my golden birthday, we’ll be lucky to make rent.

I have a job prospect of my own, however. I’ve been having so much fun playing around with the coding here at the blog that I want to expand my horizons once again and do some more web building. While it is definitely a bit more technical, it still enables me to feel crafty and it’s something I can do from home (and those are very good things). The only problem is that my prospective employer plays hardball. She really likes the ideas I have for her site, but she doesn’t like parting ways with her hard-earned cash. I should know. She’s my mom.

Really, I can understand her perspective, because the woman has busted her ass to get where she is in life - certainly didn’t there from handing over all her money to people calling her up asking for it! Plus, I’m her kid and, let’s face it, I haven’t always been the most upstanding child a mama could hope for. I’ve screwed up plenty and that includes costing her some a lot of that money from time to time. So she isn’t eager to give me much. Frankly, I’m still new at all of this (I know some coding and have built a few sites in my time) and while I’m more than willing to learn and put in the time and effort to provide her with an outstanding product and service, I really have no idea what the real-world value of such a thing might be. (If you happen to know, I’d be eternally grateful for a comment or an email with such information! tata at imnotbeautifullikeyou.com - thanks!) Being as how mom knows this, she is likely to insist that the experience is a great form of partial payment and will prolly offer up (at my insistance, mind you) her finished site as reference to other prospective jobs in the future, assuming I pursue such a path. In any case, I’ve spent a good amount of time working on her site, designing fresh graphics and writing HTML and CSS codes for a new layout.

Suddenly, it seems as if there isn’t enough time in the day to do all that I want to do. I want to crochet amigurumi animals and food, knit scarves and socks (I wish my needles would hurry up and get here already!), I want to learn how to make my own yarn, I want to code and design graphics, I want to read that stack of books I just picked up at the library, I want to catch up on my DVR and see those movies I borrowed from P at BHF’s insistance, I want to bake, I want to sleep, I want someone to come fold my laundry so I can do the other stuff…

This year on August 31, I will be celebrating my Golden Birthday. I’m turning 31.

Every year, people ask me about what I want and every year, I feel totally unprepared and clueless about what I want. Well not this year! My yarn lust has prompted me to add favorites on Etsy.com and update my Amazon.com wish list. I’ve also got my eyes on a really great needle set over at Knitpicks.com.

The weather has been unseasonably mild. Yesterday, we took the boy to the park to enjoy the breeze and to expend some of his seemingly endless supply of energy. He went down the slide and didn’t cry!

The Circles to Square blanket is finished!
Sorry it’s taken me so long to finish it, mom,
but I hope you love it as much as I do.

I’m working on a scarf from my first skein of wool yarn.
I’m really pleased with how it’s turning out.
I only wish I had been braver and gotten a brighter color,
as I find the gray to be a bit depressing.
It’s been a good pattern for a starting project.

For good measure, some pictures of Buddha,
“reading” from the book we borrowed from the library.

The past few days have been slow and lazy around here.

Husband has been focusing a lot on school work. He’s overwhelmed by Statistics. We went ahead an ordered him a book because reading from the screen just isn’t the same and it would have been more costly to print the entire thing out.

I have been plurking a lot. Damn thing is addictive! I insist that - if you haven’t yet joined - you do so at once! And be my friend! I’ve broadened my network of knitting acquaintances and am hopeful to learn something from them. If nothing else, I know that they will appreciate my learning process.

Yesterday, Buddha and I went to the library. I picked up a number of knitting books, including Debbie Stoller’s, which I have already read in it’s entirety. She is just so well-written and easy to read. The boy picked himself out some books, too, including one about baby signs. I’m pleased that I already know most of those signs!

After Buddha went to bed, (which, by the way, has been going much better with Husband home at night) I practiced some different stitches and learned how to increase a couple of different ways. I wanted to keep going, but the boy refused to be cooperative last night and stay asleep, so I called it a night around 1:30am.

I picked up a skein of wool-blend sock yarn a few days before Husband lost his job and I’m very eager to get to that place where I can use it to make a pair of socks. However, I admit I’m a bit intimidated. I’ll keep working my way up to it, though.

And the crochet breakfast project has just went into hibernation. Turns out the yarn I had for toast and bacon is all wrong. I did finish the fried egg, though. It’s really cute and I can’t wait until I can finish the rest of breakfast.

In the meantime, I think I will continue to work on some new amigurumi projects. I’ve got some things in mind, but until I can grow my yarn stash some more, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to actually do. Yarn is so addictive. A very expensive hobby. Sigh. Just browsing online sites gives me yarn lust! I’ve also got to finish the Circle to Squares project for my mom. I’ve got about half of it sewn together. Once the whole thing is sewn, I’ve got to get a border on there. The local knitters were disappointed I didn’t bring it last week, so I’d like to bring it this week to show off!

I took a late nap, which always makes the day feel weird. Buddha napped with me, but when he woke up, I changed him, handed him to Husband and promptly went back to bed. I slept another two hours or so. It was a good sleep, though, just not long enough.

Yesterday, Husband accompanied me to the library where I got some more crochet books, renewed a couple of books and got two books on hand-spinning. I’m really interested in learning. It sounds like a GOB of work, but it sounds so rewarding, especially when I consider how much money I might save on yarn.

Afterwards, I accompanied him to the downtown Fiscal Building so he could apply for his CCDW. He was frazzled that we wouldn’t get there on time, especially considering I was 100% certain of where we were going. However, I have mad navigation skillz and even better parallel parking skillz. I even managed to find a parking meter with 2 hours left on it! We got there with more than 10 minutes to spare and the entire ordeal took maybe 5 minutes.

Then we drove into the Highlands, so I could seek out a coffee shop where some locals get together on Tuesdays for knitting/crocheting. Problem was that I mistakenly thought I was searching for a yarn store. D’oh! Here I thought there were 2 businesses in town with the same name. I had read earlier this week that the coffee shop was closing. I never made the connection that it was the same place. So, I’m not as savvy as I thought.

In any case, one of those lovely locals and I have exchanged a few messages on Ravelry and I read her blog religiously. I sent her a message and she invited me to the group on Ravelry, so I could be in the know of where they’d be getting together on Tuesday.

Then we drove by a house we’ve found online that we really like. It’s HUGE - almost 3,000 sq. ft., three floors, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, big front and back porches for a killer price. The only drawback is the location. I’m not fond of the location at all for a place to raise our kids. I’m going to hafta do some additional research on the area - the school(s) the kids would attend, the crime rate, etc. if we were to ever seriously consider it.

We stopped at Aldi on our way home. Husband has never been there. They are a lot like Sav-A-Lot, but they have some great deals and sometimes some good imports. I spent a small fortune on imported chocolate.

I had hoped Husband and I would be able to go to KT’s for dinner last night. It’s my most favorite restaurant of all. Great food, good service, excellent ambiance, and a fair price. We’ve been a handful of times since moving back to the ‘Ville, but I can never get enough. I wanted to wait until later in the evening, so we could enjoy our meal on the outdoor patio. Later came and Husband didn’t want to go anymore. Instead, I lied down with the baby and dozed a long while. When I woke up, I had a need for ice cream. It was about 10pm. Husband and I packed up Buddha and T joined us to the Dairy Queen. We ate way too much. I had a hot fudge waffle bowl sundae that was pure heaven. The boy surprised me by rejecting several bites from his dad’s ice cream. He ended up staying up until 1am, too.

This morning, I woke up too early (see previous post). By the time I was ready to crawl back into bed, the boy was awake. He wakes up with the sweetest demeanor. I was here at the computer, tinkering with my new Ravelry widget and I heard him call for me: “Daddy!” I poked my head around the corner and was greeted by a big smile. He reached for me immediately. I laughed and told him I prefer to be called “Mama.” We played for a bit, but since about an hour after waking, he’s been a total grouch. Very whiny. Sigh.

Tonight, Husband started making dinner - a London Broil on the grill. I jumped in the shower while T watched the boy. Husband busted into the bathroom: “I ran outta gas! Making a run to the store!” After my brief shower, I ran out to the grill to snap a picture of the delicious-looking and -smelling hunk of meat.

I stole bites as I prepared small pieces for the boy.
Husband’s plate. Yummy!
Dinner was delicious! Husband is a very good grill master. He’s made steaks on the stove a half dozen times or so and the results were always “meh.” I finally suggested he get out the grill about a month or two ago. That night, after dinner I told him he was never allowed to cook steak in the house again! T whined that the meat was too pink for her liking once or twice before, so this time Husband cooked hers a bit longer. I used to like my steak well, too, but nowadays it tastes like the bottom of a shoe when it’s cooked that long. I prefer it more medium, thank you very much.

Tonight I hope to get some or all of my squares sewn together. Once that’s complete, I still need to add a border before it’s totally done. I’m getting close. I had really hoped to visit a local yarn store called The Knit Nook today to get some yarn for my next project - a blanket for my mother-in-law (MIL). I still haven’t found a pattern that I like for her, but I’m excited because MIL’s favorite colors are my favorites, too. Maybe I can get over there tomorrow. Wait, are they open tomorrow? Ooh, I hope so. Husband has some schoolwork to get to while he’s still got plenty of time to focus on it, but we might catch a movie together tonight, too.

All that’s left to do is sew the squares together and crochet a border!