Take Me Out To The Costco...

I spent 3 and a half hours at work yesterday evening straightening books on shelves. Yup. And then I cleaned a bathroom. After that, I waited for the cashiers to finish counting their drawers. That netted me about 30 dollars. Which almost pays for the pair of jeans I ordered from Lands End this afternoon...

I'm spending it faster than I can make it.

I made an executive decision at work: despite our company policy of asking each and every customer if we can aid them in the book selection process, I will not proffer assistance to a gentleman(?) investigating a tome titled 101 Sex Positions. I just couldn't picture myself walking up to him and saying, "May I help you with that?"

In fact, I hid in another aisle until he was gone. A whole store full of good books and that's what he picks out? Sheesh.

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Uncle Matt took me and the kids to Costco today. I'd never been. We ate lots of samples and bought 2 big jars of (you guessed it) salsa. Old habits die hard. Then Uncle Matt treated the kids to one-dollar hotdogs. A good time was had by all.

What can I say? We're easily amused.

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There's nothing else here. Check out some of the other one-and-a-half million blogs, will ya? Tell me if you find something good.

Or follow me on Twitter...I think I've got it now...

Tweet, Tweet

Today was getting off to a slow start, so Grandpa decided to liven things up by requesting a visit to the local urgent-care facility to investigate some excruciating ear pain of his. I grabbed one of my many knitting bags and headed out the door with him, leaving Larry on his own to wrestle the kids into the proper clothes for holiday-parade attendance. Grandpa got some antibiotic ear drops, and I got over an hour of extra knitting time in. I call that a win-win, don't you?

Except for Larry - he got to sit on a cold sidewalk for an hour waiting for Santa to ride by...

And I'll admit it - I caved. I headed over to Michael's with 2 50%-off coupons in hand, looking to buy some more yarn for the scarf I'm working on. And wouldn't you know, that yarn was already discounted - I couldn't use the coupons for it. So that I wouldn't have compromised my no-shopping-on-Black-Friday principles for nothing, I used the coupons on some other yarn I wanted.

So, yes, I bought 3 skeins of yarn today. But I don't think yarn-buying really counts as shopping, anymore than breathing counts as exercise. Meaning, it's too essential.


Many thanks to all of you who sent me info on Twitter. I managed to install a Twitter something-or-other on my Firefox whatchamacallit, which makes it way more accessible. After wasting an hour on it this evening, I've determined that Twitter reminds me more of an old-fashioned party line (think the Waltons, okay?) than anything else.

Oh, and Larry found my socks. Behind the dryer, happily unshrunken...naturally, I Twittered about it...

[Is that proper usage? Should it be, I Twittered it instead?]

Random Thoughts On A (Not) Snowy Morning

I'm fine. Really. Just got to get going and make breakfast for a bunch of people...do you think they want their turkey cold, or warmed up?

(Don't worry - they're getting pie with it.)

Could someone answer a really dumb question? How the heck does one use Twitter? From what I can see, I have to go to a webpage, log on, and post. Is there a different way to do it? Because that doesn't seem spontaneous enough to me...

And how do you know when someone you "follow" Twitters? Do you have to keep checking the webpage?

I want to use Twitter because everyone else is doing it. I guess none of us ever really escape the siren call of peer pressure, do we?

Oh, and all you folks up in Canada - could you stop making me jealous with all those blog pictures of beautiful snow scenes in your backyards? Where I'm at, everything is brown. With a little tired green thrown in. It doesn't exactly shout "Christmas!" In fact, it's downright boring.


I'm not going shopping today. If the economy tanks, y'all can blame me.

As The Food Turns: Thanksgiving Edition

Yeah, I'm a day late. So shoot me. I had my first evening of work yesterday; I'll talk more about that tomorrow, but just let me say that if someone wants to pay me to vacuum, I'm all for it. That's what I've been practicing for all these years.

So, over there, below and to the left (the left! something different every week!) is a comely stack of past-their-prime leftovers, taking their farewell walk, as it were. From the top down:

1. homemade blackberry jam from Auntie Kate. Yum.
2. leftover oatmeal that I once again neglected to force on my hungry children.
3. egg salad. Blecch. Don't do a close-up on that one.
4. Mexican chicken and black beans. I'm surprised to see this, as I managed to serve these leftovers at 3 separate meals. Maybe I should cook in smaller quantities?
5. crockroast drippings. If I had made real gravy out of these, they wouldn't have been left over. Mea culpa.
6. cranberry sauce. Ousted from the refrigerator to make room for the fresh batch we made yesterday.
7. mashed potatoes. We're making more today. Maybe I should have been more frugal and tried using these instead...

Well, I'm off to do an emergency run to the grocery store - because 3 times already this week just wasn't enough. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Whistle A Happy Tune...

Happiness is finding forgotten chocolate in my knitting bag. What more could a gal ask for?

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I am starting to realize that if I've knitted 4 scarves since last December, I cannot possibly knit 6 more in the next two weeks. Do you think it would be a good idea to mail 5 scarves this year and then mail another 5 next year for the people who didn't get any? The problem is, these are all being packed in one big box, so people are going to know they've been left out.

That's not one of the ones I've done, by the way - I stole someone else's picture. So don't start asking me where I got the yarn, or how it feels to knit with, or whatever. I've been using Paton's merino, which is a great deal at Michael's with the 40 percent off coupon.

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My teen daughter wants to see "Twilight" - the movie made from the book that you should have heard about by now if you are acquainted with any of the female species. It's a classic tale of star-crossed lovers, all mixed up in teenage melodrama. Only this particular star-crossed couple consists of a human girl and a vampire guy. I asked Anna how that could work and she explained, "Well, the guy is a vegetarian vampire."

All righty, then. That clears it right up.

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The pair of socks that I knit 3 times has disappeared. I last saw them on top of the washer. This does not bode well. I asked Larry if he had seen them and he said no, but he didn't sound convincing. My guess is that someone threw them in the dryer by mistake and that Larry came upon their shrunken forms and did what any sensible knitter's husband would do in such a situation: he hid them.

Let this be a reminder to all of us: we should hug our handknits frequently and tell them how special they are. Any time together could be our last.

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Susie is fine with her stitches as long as we don't

1. wipe her face
2. take off her shirt
3. put on her shirt
4. give her drippy food

Apparently, when one warns a three-year-old to be careful of her stitches, she takes it very, very seriously.

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Anna looks surprised and vaguely annoyed to find me still here. As in, "Don't you have a home to go to?" surprised. Or, "You're so old and boring, why do you even bother to go on living?" annoyed. In her eyes, I look precisely like the picture to the left. Only, less fun.

I try not to take it personally. I mean, if I'm lucky, I only have to wait another 20 - 30 years for her to be regarded the same way by her teen daughter.

Not that I'm counting the days, or anything...