Keep calm and tat on

I've turned my teacher's application and patterns in for Palmetto Tat Days 2012. Whew!

And I've got all Moe's Boy Scout Camp applications (yes, more than one) completed and ready to mail. I also filled out the applications for camp scholarships and turned them in. Whew again!

I'm so grateful that part's over. I've been very very busy.

For a bit I felt like this. (Not really - Vader didn't even struggle.)

Now - on to the taxes. Next week will be résumé time. The time may have come for me to change jobs.

In the mean time, keep calm and tat on!

What's shakin' at Chez Crazy

It's turned into Fall here. Thank heavens! That was a durn long hot and dreadful summer. Fall is my favorite time of year.

 

The trees are turning a bit. Most are still green, with some going straight to brown due to our drought, but this one is pretty. I took this picture on Sunday, when the sky was soooo blue. It's cold and windy today.

Just the kind of day to do some lying around, like Cisco is here. His fur is even softer than it looks. And he is the cleanest cat I've ever known - all that fur is white and shiny and perfectly groomed.

I want to relax like Cisco does.

Larry has been doing his first paramedic hand-on training on an ambulance. He did ride-alongs when he was training to be an EMT, but a paramedic is a much higher level of certification.

This is the first group of texts I got from him while he was on the ambulance. I was worried about Larry dealing with the baby, as Larry has a pretty tender heart. He would do a good job, but if things went south, Larry would take it hard. Fortunately, the baby will be fine.

Then I asked him what other patients he had.

Heh. I hate autocorrect too, but it does help sometimes. Larry did well this time - they got the pregnant lady to the hospital and all is good. His next training session is Sunday.

Now that the days are getting shorter, I'm driving more with my headlights on. And I notice all the halos I'm seeing around lights due to my cataracts. Pretty rainbow halos. Violet to indigo to cyan to chartreuse to gold to orange to crimson..

Much like this. Pretty. *SIGH*  Less than two weeks until I get my first cataract done. Can't come soon enough.

I'm tatting a bit, but I'm very distracted of late. This Mary Konior's Large Cross. I've made this pattern a zillion times, but this time I keep making mistakes and having to retro tat. I'll bet I've picked out 10 rings and 10 chains in this cross alone. I'm stressing We're having to spend a lot of money right now and we really don't have it. Dental implants, eye stuff, the dryer breaking, my retirement funds going to hell,  and everything is costing way more than we thought. Plus, while Curly likes his job, he's not getting many hours, therefore not much money. I can't really help him and I'm worried for him. Grrr.

I've recently gotten addicted to this. It's BAD. But it helps me during sad times.

Why can't I be more like Cisco? "What - me worry?"

Are the rest of you stressing these days? What do you do for stress relief?

I've been buried

These days, I hate my job. I really do. I'm underpaid and very overworked, and I have huge pressures at work. It's very political at my job, and I'm not an office politics kind of gal. It may sound odd, but I like to do a good job and not get kicked in the teeth for it. This is usually NOT what happens at my current place of employment. It's like the end of the world when anything goes wrong. And while my boss is very supportive, there are many people at my job who are out to assign blame for anything they can. Gleefully.

This past week has been something of a cluster f*** at work for me. One of my systems had a big problem. I went in early, had awful, endless meetings where lots of fingers pointed at me (and I had done nothing wrong), culminating in very long, late, stressful hours. I finally got things wound up late Friday, and then I spent all day Saturday at the local hospital taking some classes for a medical condition I have. I didn't want to go to the classes, but Big Brother the insurance company was twisting my arm. Afterwards, I came home and dropped from exhaustion. I even ditched church on Sunday - and I go regularly. I needed the rest.

Good news - today was better at work! It was more a normal day, no major crisis to handle. Hurrah! The rest of the week looks pretty good too. I'm hoping things stay quiet....

I rested some on Sunday, took a little nap with Vader. I like having a kitty sleeping with me, it's restful. And they love on me so much....

In other news...

Moe starts school on Thursday, and had a good time at the Freshman Fiesta. He found his homeroom and was assigned a locker. He knows where the important things like the bathroom and the cafeteria are. And he saw a bunch of his buddies there. I've got him loaded up with school supplies. So he is ready for the school bus on Thursday.

Curly is out of town working some with the company he'd done work for earlier. It's a long stretch out of town, about 8-9 days, working with an old buddy of DH's. Plus Curly is working some at the local mall, and the place will work with his other work schedule. So - money is coming in for Curly, at least for now. He's having some issues with his landlord, but I'm leaving that up to Curly to manage. I hope he has a place to stay when he comes back to town.

Larry roared with laughter when I showed him these on the web (available here). (Flashbacks to PBS in the late '80s - "Let's put some happy little trees over here by this lake...")  I offered to get these for DH, but he declined. His reason? He prefers boxers.

I picked up a few books recently via AbeBooks.com. which is one of my favorite places to get used books. I picked up two tatting books - Lynn Morton's Tatting Patterns, and The DMC Book of Charted Tatting Designs. I'm pleased to have these in my tatting library. I also got a great buy on current read for my Pulitzer book club, Gone With the Wind. I read this voraciously as a teen, and adored Scarlet. I found a nice hardback copy with dust jacket for under $4, shipped! Oh, Ashley....

Cisco cares nothing about Scarlett, and even less about that dumb old Ashley. He just wants me to pet him.

I'm a winner!!!!

I never win anything.  I've bought lotto tickets galore - I never even win a free ticket.


But not today.  Today I'm a winner!


Here's what I won

Yup, I'm this week's winner of LadyShuttleMaker's Mondo Monday Giveaway.  How great is that?  I've positively drooled over her shuttles.  And now this pretty one will be mine.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Miss LadyShuttleMaker.  You made my day.  You are so very generous with your talents.

And Internets, YOU can be a winner too.  Just hop on over to LadyShuttleMaker's place and enter.  It's easy as pie!  And who knows? Maybe you'll win this Monday's prize!

I kinda needed a pick-me-up.  DH is out of town all week, so I'm manning the fort against the heathens.  After I drove home from Charleston on Sunday with grumpy Curly in the car ("Don't TOUCH me!" "Don't TALK to me!" "Why won't you let me DRIVE?!"), I came home to find two disasters.  One was immediately apparent - none of the cats were in the house.  Cisco and Sophie were quickly located, but Larry's cat, Sylvia, has not been seen.  We found some of her under-fur in the front yard and we have coyotes here, so I fear the worst.  Larry didn't go with us - he had to work, but otherwise was home, so he should have paid attention.  And she's his cat.  I can't think about it, though.

The other disaster only became apparent after I went grocery shopping and we went to put groceries in the large chest freezer.  That's when we found it was completely defrosted.  It was plugged into a special power strip and the strip had gotten tripped, probably on Thursday or Friday.  I was able to rescue a ham and about $20 worth of meats and vegies, but that's it.  After I finished pitching stuff, there was a soup of melted ice, popsicles, and ice cream in the bottom that had to be cleaned out right then.  Ugh.  What a mess.  The freezer had been mostly full, and I'll bet I lost $400 worth of food.  After that, watching Mad Men wasn't much solace.  Monday I got to work and was told I have to move my personal office to a cube in another building on Thursday - get your own boxes to pack your stuff.  It's great working for a semi-governmental agency.

*Sigh*

Last night Curly threw another one of his fits and sorta lost his little mind.  He smashed his acoustic guitar on the sidewalk and talked about suicide.  The triggers were A) not getting a solo in chorus and B) me turning off his cell phone when he flat out refused to do his chores. I finally got him calmed down and into bed, but I thought for a while I might be spending another night doing intake at a local adolescent psychatric institute, something I've had to do before.  The suicide talk I take seriously, but he assured me that his thoughts on this were not current, he was talking of old thoughts.  I checked to make sure he was asleep before I could go to bed.

Being Curly's mom is hard. 

DH isn't very helpful with when Curly gets like this, he mostly yells.  As parents, we all do what we know, and DH had some pretty bad parenting examples.  His stepfather didn't have clue how to deal with teens. He just screamed at them. DH means well, he's just clueless.  So it's up to me.

Curly's a bit better today.  He taped his guitar back together and is now composing a new song. (He's very creative and really writes terrific lyrics - and I've told him so.)  And he has an appointment with his psychiatrist Saturday.  We will be making some medication changes.

I'm fairly stressed, but will be ok.  It's nothing I haven't dealt with before.  And this is one reason I can't tat (or do some other things) as often as I'd like.

Tomorrow - packing my office.  And as Scarlet O'Hara said, "Tomorrow is another day."

Anyhow, thanks, LadyShuttleMaker, for making my day BETTER!