A typical holiday happening

Last night SH and I were in bed and I got up several times throughout the night to turn off the heat. I never really noticed that it wasn't actually turning off each time. This morning when I got up, I realized it was STIFLING in the house. I went yet again to turn off the heat. It wouldn't turn off. It was about 80 degrees in the house. SH got out the toolbox and did what he could to figure out the problem. Finally he just turned off the circut breaker. Whew...a little relief. I had to turn on all the ceiling fans to get the temperature somewhat comfortable. Everything SH tried didn't work so it was time to call in the repairman. He is currently working in the laundry room trying to get our problem fixed. I only hope it isn't too expensive. Why is it that on almost every big holiday, something major breaks at our house? Not just a blown bulb or a toilet that doesn't stop running. It is always something BIG. I know we have had similar problems with the heater/AC unit and I only hope it has a few years of life left in it. Fingers crossed!!! LOL, Before the repairman arrived, I scrambled around (in usual Cla fashion) cleaning and straightening up. SH even joined in.

possibly the last post of the year

Seems like it has been ages since I blogged......

Following that wreck in front of the house, I have been kind of in a slump. I have been so sad thinking about the family of the driver. She didn't get to be at home for the holidays. I assume following the funeral/memorial service, the family drove up to see the accident site. There were flower arrangements and a funeral wreath placed at the scene. There are orange/white DOT barrels on the median warning drivers that the pavement is pitted and uneven from the extreme heat.

I had pretty much fallen off of the exercise wagon after quitting my job. Recently I have slowly gotten off my arse and climbed back on. I started doing two workouts in the day. I have been doing at least 30 minutes on the treadmill, walking and running. I usually burn about 200 calories or more. Yesterday I went almost an hour and made up for two cinnamon rolls I ate. It felt so good to feel like I never even ate them!! I try to treadmill earlier in the day, then at 6 pm I do my regular workout. I have all kinds of workout videos, but I am trying to stick to cardio for the time being. I am also back to counting calories. UGH. I read somewhere online about a way to start cutting calories that is a little easier to stick with as opposed to immediately slashing your intake by several hundred calories. It suggested cutting 100 calories per day and sticking with that for 4 days. On day five, cut another 100 calories and stick with that for 4 days. You will eventually be down to the calorie limit you should sustain.

This has been on my mind and I want to bring up a question to see how others feel. Say you want to add a pet to your family. Specifically a puppy. You already have a very sweet 5 year old dog. Do you get rid of the first pet to add a new pet to the family? I have a friend who is "retiring" pet #1 for pet #2. Pet #1 will be going to live at the parent's house. I could never get rid of a pet for the sake of adding another! You certainly couldn't do that with children!!

Xmas was great this year. I didn't have many wants this time around. Normally I have all kinds of wishes and "needs". I felt bad asking for things since I was not working and bringing in a paycheck. I did get one of my big wants....an iPod!! SH got it for me for my birthday and all the accessories came for xmas. I even got a really cool cover for it. It is hard plastic with a chrome-type finish on it. When the ipod is on, the screen is visible through the cover only to the user. It rocks. I have since become a Podcast nerd. I have all kinds of podcasts and have actually been BUYING music. I hadn't purchased music in ages. I have used the ipod while treadmilling and it makes the time go by much faster than staring at the walls or the tv.

I have still been crocheting blankets. I ended up making one for SH's mother that I finished in record time. I completely forgot that SH mentioned that his mother would love to have one of my blankets until 10 days before we were to visit them. We made a mad dash to pick out yarn and I got to crocheting. I thought a pattern utilizing squares instead of a full-on blanket would be fastest. In all the rush of holiday-ness, I forgot to take a pic of it!!! I found the pattern at Bernat. The site is running v.e.r.y s.l.o.w. today so I couldn't link the pattern but here is a pic. I went with a similar color pattern too. It looks so much prettier in person.

The current wip (below) is a lapghan using leftovers from the MIL blanket.

I am working on another blanket for a certain someone when they get knocked up.......*wink-wink* you know who you are. It just needs one more skein to be finished. I also have plans to re-start a blanket I intended on making about 5 years ago for my nephews. I had all the best intentions when the boys were babies to make them a blanket, but since I was looming it (waaaay before learning crochet) I couldn't figure out how to attach the squares correctly. I had 70% of the squares done when I completely trashed it. I am now going to make good on the promise I made myself and get their blanket in the works. :) Only now it will need to be much bigger!!!

P.S. I need this and/or this. Mother of Purl, you need this.

A Donnie Darko moment

A little after 6 this morning, an explosion woke me from a sound sleep. I sat straight up in bed. Was it a propane tank? Was it an airplane crash? The airport is directly behind our house. It was a total Donnie Darko moment for SH and me. We jumped out of bed and looked out the front and back doors. Nothing unusual. I looked out the front door again and saw our neighbor running down the street. He yelled "call the fire department! We heard several smaller explosions and were confused as to what they were. We dressed and while I was waiting for SH, I saw smoke rising from the front of the neighborhood near the highway. We started walking that direction. I was scared about what we were going to see, but human nature made me need to see what was going on. I was just hoping everyone involved was alright. As we crested the hill, we saw flames. Huge flames and billowing black smoke. It wasn't someones house. It was an 18 wheeler on fire. The story is that the 18 wheeler rear ended a loaded log truck that had just started moving after pulling out of a driveway. The "bangs" we kept hearing were unfilled propane tanks that the 18 wheeler was carrying. The driver of the log truck was taken to the hospital and we hear he may have a broken neck. The driver of the propane truck never made it out of his rig. They are saying that he was likely asleep on impact. Through the grapevine, we heard the parents of the log truck driver say that their son saw the propane truck driver coming down the hill in his side mirror. He said to himself "you are gonna slow down buddy aren't you?" He never did. The propane truck hit the log truck and they both slid several hundred feet. The parents also said that all the controls in the cab of the log truck were shaken loose. Once the fire department put out the fire, what was left of the propane truck was shocking. The rear end of the trailer shell was crumpled and blackened. The cab was gone. It was like it was never there. You could see the frame and front driver side wheel, but no cab. There was empty space where the cab would have been. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me so sad to realize that someone isn't coming home tonight.

The family of the log truck driver kept talking about how their trailer is totaled. Wah-Wah. I know that sucks and they will need to buy a new trailer. Isn't that what we have insurance? Big deal. True it will be inconvenient, but it can be remedied. For another family, their father/husband/son won't be home tonight.

Update: The only remains they have been able to recover of the driver is a few bones. The local news is saying that the family hasn't been notified yet. I don't know how on earth they can figure out who the driver was with nothing left of a truck. I just hate to think that somewhere there is a family who still thinks their family member(s) is on the road hauling their shipment, expected to be home for Christmas.

At least I don't have a tum-ah!!!

I have been having headaches and migranes for quite some time now. There is really no rhyme or reason when they hit, they seem random. I finally saw a doctor about them. She sent me off for an MRI and bloodwork. In the process of taking my blood, the nurse gave me a major crack bruise. LOVELY! During the MRI I also was gifted with yet another crack bruise when they added the contrast. I have been doing my best to keep that arm covered when I leave the house. :) My results from the bloodwork and the MRI were both normal. I have been given a Rx for a medicine to take at the onset of a migrane. I haven't taken one yet and am a little anxious about taking one. I was informed that about 30 minutes after taking the pill I will experience some interesting side effects. My heart will start to race and I will get flushed. This is the medicine getting into my bloodstream and starting to take effect. She told me that she just wanted to let me know so that I won't freak out when I start to feel the side effects. These pills aren't cheap either! Six of them were $120.00!!! I sure hope they work.

Still no word about jobs. I found out some crappy news about one of the jobs on campus. I was their first choice for the job. BUT, a higher up involved in the hiring process didn't like the way the other administrators were interviewing. He went over their heads and hired a friend of a friends wife who needed a job. Now let me add that this woman knows absolutely nothing about computers and the university system. They will have to train her from the ground up. ARGH!!! I do know that they will be opening yet another position, basically to take up the slack from this lady. I will have to reapply and reinterview. That should be a barrel of monkeys.
I have registered for another test so that I can be eligible for another state job. I would much rather prefer a kush state job over one on campus, but I am not going to be picky at this point.

In all my down time, I am still working on blankets. Most recently I started working on ablanket for the MIL. SH mentioned last week that his mother would LOVE a blanket for Christmas. We went to get the yarn and I started working immediately. I had 14 days to get it done since we will be doing family christmas Saturday. I had 80 squares to create, attach them into strips 8 squares long, attach the strips together, then finish the entire blanket in 5 rows of stitches. I finished the last 14 squares yesterday since I ran out of 2 colors of yarn. While waiting for more yarn, I managed to get most of the strips done. Today I have 6 major connections to sew and will hopefully get started on the finishing. I have never done a blanket of this caliber in this amount of time. WHEW. I will be glad when it is finished. Will get pics soon.

Ingenious!!!

A fellow blogger (who I am completely enamoured with) has released a product that has been in the works for about a year now. I have been patiently waiting to see her Trash Ties and learn exactly how they work. Check out her site if you are interested!!! http://www.trashties.com/ I am gonna have to order some soon.

Still unemployed

SH and I finished up our x-mas shopping this morning. It felt so good to have that chore complete! I picked up the mail on our way in and there was a letter from Troy in the stack. Oh goodie!! News about the jobs!!! Wait a minute sister. Not so fast. I had to read the letter twice to make sense of it. The position I interviewed for last week has been filled. SHIT. Oh well, still no word yet about the interview yesterday....until I checked my voicemail. YUP, they filled that job too. DOUBLE SHIT. What gets me is that I had two friends associated with each of these jobs who were pulling for me. I am seriously at my wits end. I had a little mini breakdown after getting the double thumbs down today. Why is it that the only place that was interested in me treated me like crap and paid me even less? Why will nobody hire me? I am at a complete loss.

One month and counting

I have been unemployed for over a month now. I am really getting anxious about finding a new job. I have made several charity blankets and am almost at the end of my rope...no pun intended. I took a trash bag full of blankets to a local charity last week. I am working on another one right now. This one is a round blanket. I have seen several patterns for round blankets and wondered why one would want a round one. It just seems that it wouldn't cover the body well. Anyway, I wanted to give it a try, nothing wrong with learning a new pattern. I had an interview today for a job at the University. I had another interview last week for a different job at the University. Lord knows I have applied for almost every job they have open. Surely something will pan out...right???!!!???

On a positive note, Christmas shopping is almost finished. We managed in record time this year. We started actually purchasing gifts last week and have 2 more small gifts to buy. We also managed to buy while sticking to a budget. We should do it this way every year!! I didn't get to do my usual "home/handmade gifts" this year. I didn't really have the time/money/desire to think about that kind of gift anyway. Maybe next year. I thought about compiling recpies for a cookbook as the homemade gift. When I started looking at publishing, I realized that I should have started a few months ago. I think I am going to do that for next years X-mas. I sent out a mass email entitled "call for recipes" to all my friends and family and have the highest of hopes that they will reply with their family favorite recipes to add. I am pondering the title for the cookbook now. It wouldn't be anything super fancy, just a collection of recipes from people I love. :)