birthday!

7:15 am

It’s my birthday today! Wish me happy birthday. And here’s an idea:

What if everyone that reads this makes a happy birthday comment????? Wouldn’t that be cool?

Except here’s something weird: on the sideboard of my home page on the computer is a calendar. But today the calendar is blank. What is that saying?

I don’t particularly have time to write. I must get breakfast eaten, mix up some tuna fish for lunch, feed buns and get on the bus. I’m actually going to stop at the store to pick up a chocolate cake to bring into work. Silly I know and it means I then have to wait there for a full half hour for the next bus to come by to get to work. Well there is always plenty to do. At 10 I meet with a student, 11 is lecture, 1:15 is lab, today it is at the art museum. After lab I meet with a student. I think then I will take the bus all the way to town and pick up some pizza for supper.

The whole rest of this week is a bit of a blur. Biggest issue is that we must leave my work (K will pick me up) by 2:30 to get to the top of Mt. Greylock for a friend’s wedding rehearsal on Fri. it will be a bit of a haul and means Fri will be in general very rushed.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Fair Aftermath

7:30 am

                Question of the morning is: can the computer handle my using Microsoft Word at the same time that it is copying all my photos to the external hard drive? We’ll see, seems to be doing fine so far.

                Fair yesterday. Apple Harvest. I actually did not too badly. And I like the fact that the fee goes to the Family Center after all. The worst part was loading the car on Friday. This “new” car is smaller, or at least it is shorter, than the old station wagon and it is way smaller than the camperbus (oh, NOW I miss the camper) so it takes far more effort to fit everything in. Plus it was raining pretty steadily which made it all that much more of a pain. Plus I just plain wasn’t feeling good. So I ended up doing a lot of cursing and talking to myself to get through it. The setting up was not bad at all (though I am a complete lazy bum and absolutely hate getting up at quarter to six in order to: shower, take pills and psillium, feed buns, try to eat something, gather last minute stuff and get going). The best part is that they have tons of lovely college students there to help and it made the set up relatively painless (or less painful). Difficult part was that I have yet again changed things around so I was trying new ideas and that takes time to arrange. I decided to use the metal shelving, but as two shorter shelves on tables, and not the tall one standing on the floor. I’m not sure I liked that so well since the shelves take up a lot of table space. I also decided to try using the metal squares differently and that worked well. Instead of making boxes that things could sit on, I made them vertical pieces that I hung skeins on, using S hooks I found at Home Depot. It worked well and I think I’ll expand on that. Maybe do more of those and not use the second shelf. Once I was all set up, it was a matter of sitting there. What I generally like best is talking to the kids. And I love watching the really little ones that are fascinated by the rabbits or the spinning.  That is usually pretty fun.

                So on to today. Blah. I must first, I suppose, empty the car. Just didn’t have the energy to last night. Breaking everything down was really nice because, once again, of the students. And loading up was not so bad (I wasn’t worried about the order of what I put in which I was for loading to go to the fair since I wanted to be sure to get the tent out and up first so everything wouldn’t get wet). But I was still too tired of it all to unload last night. I got home around 5:30, and I decided to meditate, then I had to feed buns and after that I really needed to cook some. I browned some meat then put it in the same sauce as I had made for the curry last week since there was a lot left. I hope it turns out well. It smells good anyway.

                So this morning: finish this, I have already taken psillium and pills (yuck), get dressed, feed buns, unload the junk, then walk into town to Black Sheep. My main job for today is grading. I need to do the quiz page (the prof gave me the easy one which is nice) and I have the graphs. I’m thinking it would be really nice to get those done to hand back today so they could get some feedback before they hand in the assignment due this week. We’ll see how that goes.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

fairs and what-not

7:30 am

                Ok. I am grumpy and my butt hurts and my tummy feels crummy. So there. And not really any good reason for any of it because today is….Lovely Tuesday when I don’t have to go into work, so I can be home and do all the home stuff that needs doing. Like work on some knitting that I would like to finish in anticipation of the fair on Saturday. Speaking of which, the fair last Saturday was ok. Not great. I made about $200 after taking out the fee, so that is, as I said, ok but certainly not great given the work involved. And I do NOT like the space since there was a fan going the entire day that gave off a high-pitched whine that made me crazy. If I go again next year I will ask for a space away from the fan. I never actually walked around to see anyone else’s set up so I don’t know if the sound was as bad on the other side.  I did see lots of folks and did lots of socializing which is probably a good thing, though it is a lot of it packed into one day. I really wish I had a booth set up that felt good to me. I tried some different stuff this time – I used my sister’s old metal shelving unit for example. I liked the part that I put on a table, but the part that I made tall and used for hanging skeins I didn’t like so much. Everything takes so much space and I feel like my use of space is not efficient enough. One thing I forgot was the spinning rack I have used for hats and I want to be sure to remember that this week. I just feel that I have not hit on a really good way to display skeins. I have some hanging, and that is ok but they do get kind of tangled, especially the angora or heavily blended ones. I much prefer winding the skeins up, but then how to display them? I used my niece’s set of metal squares that go together in a variety of ways, but I’m not sure I like it. The skeins just sit there and I feel are not really displayed well. Maybe what I need are some of those metal racks that attach to the easy up tent and from which you can have those metal bars extending out. Skeins could then be hung on those, one color to each bar. If any of that makes any sense as I doubt. I guess I’ll look on line and see how vastly expensive they are.

                I went to the csa yesterday (switched from Fri pick up to Mon) and got a bunch of eggplant which I want to roast today. Cut them up, toss with olive oil and put in the oven kind of low for a while. A different form of ratatouille than the usual frying. AND I want to get a solar food dryer. Some day. Or rather make one. Some day.

                One thing I won’t do today is work, or at least nothing much. I suppose I could try to get the mailtool working on Ella so I can send a message out to my groups. Anyway, I’ve been working really hard with all the labs and it will be nice not to.

                Oh, another idea I had: instead of morning pages or daily poem, I “ought to” try a Daily Photo. Or rather a Daily Etsy Entry. Try to get that all started again. Of course, even thinking about it makes me think of Roxanne and that kind of makes my stomach hurt. Oh brother. Anyway, the idea would be to get some location set up so that it would be actually easy to, every day, take a photo of a skein, a knit object, whatever, and then immediately post it on Etsy. It’s an idea. 

Yet Another Busy Day

7:30 am

                Not much to write and not much time to write it, except to say that I have really been busting my ass at work for the past 2 weeks and other things have kind of fallen by the wayside – like paying bills and keeling with Mom’s finances. Ugg. I did manage to get 4 skeins of white angora spun up. Now we’ll see if any of them sell at the Fiber Twist. I am not really looking forward to it. I will have to spend this evening loading stuff into the car, then I will have to leave really early tomorrow morning to get there and get all set up. And of course, K cheerfully said no he does not need the car tomorrow, meaning that he will not be dropping me off, meaning that the entire unloading and setting up is up to me. And sitting there all day feeling discouraged and fielding questions about how much yarn would be needed for this and such project, and talking about spinning and rabbits and angora. Of course the topics are interesting to me, but it gets really tedious sitting there and I will be tired from the start. Then I’ll have to break it all down, bring it home and unload it all.

                Before I can do any of that I must get bunnies fed, myself and the bike to work, finish the revisions on Lab 2, finish setting up for next week’s lab, go to 4^th hour, go through the lab with the prof, take the bus to Atkins, get off and ride the bike to the farm to pick up my share, and bike home. Blah. And before that I must finish drinking my psillium which is not going down easy this morning. But I did not take any last night, mainly because I did not really eat supper. I was spinning the angora and not really that hungry (I got home late from working on the lab revisions) so I just had a small glass of Irish Cream (!) and some toast, and boy in the middle of the night I woke up with some wicked Butt Burn. It was not fun. So back to Psillium Diligence. Doesn’t my day ahead sound great? Thank god I enjoy interacting with the students and I very much like my co-workers and the work itself is satisfying, even if right now a bit too much. And I am very grateful that it looks like it will be a nice day today – better for biking than yesterday which was rainy. AND I am grateful to have a functional computer again.

                Ok, better GET TO IT!!!

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

computer and transport woes

7:45 am

                Really shouldn’t write as I need to feed buns and get out to the bus in about half an hour. And it doesn’t help that I seemingly can’t type – every other word is a mess up (backspace, retype, backspace, retype). Been a crazy week. Computer went on the blink, and the next day K left for PA to do a first responder training. Meaning I was left with the task of getting the computer to the shop with no car. Which I did on the bus Tues morning; I put it in my padded spinning wheel bag! Then Wednesday I realized that I had left my digital scale at Webs when I was there last week for spinning. So I had to get there by bike, which I did (it was actually quite a nice ride and a very nice evening). Yesterday I took the bus from work straight to town to the computer shop to pick the computer back up and wonder of wonders I was able to hook it back up and it works great! I need to get to work early today, even though there is no lecture, because I want to use the gym first, then I have a lot to do to go over next weed’s handout and revise it and get the dissection stuff ready. On top of all that, I’ve been spinning a good bit in the evenings, while listening to my cd of Moll Flanders. I wanted to get more pure angora spun up for the fair on Saturday.

                Ok. Gotta go.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Getting Up

8 am

            Not going to go with the big 9-11 commemoration thing, that is being done up the wazoo elsewhere. Instead I will just put in my poem for this morning. And add that our desktop computer is seemingly on the blink which sucks. I guess we’ll need to call for help on it tomorrow. As well as call re the upstairs toilet which has a slow steady constant running problem and is driving me crazy. Maybe I’ll see if I can get an appropriate part at Home Depot this am since I must go there anyway to return some tools. And – at least some excitement to look forward to: I’m going to see Wicked this evening!

Getting Up

It’s hard to get up some mornings

My joints feel stiff

My mind feels stiff

And nothing especially beckons

Long gone are the days

When a quivering ball of energy

Would leap into bed

To pull me from the depths

With eager babble

And constant needs

And gone are the days

When I would wake to commotion

A clattering in the kitchen

With arguments and breakfast

Compelling enough

To draw me forth

Now all is quiet

There is a dull monotony of tasks

Never ending

The prospect of quiet satisfaction

Mingled with annoyance

Frustration and fury

Then back to the tasks

And for these

It is hard to get up

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Another ToDo List

8:15 am

                I’m going to drink my psillium (yum yum) take my vitamin etc pills (gag) and then make use of Morning Pages to figure out what I need to do today (which, as usual, is rather overwhelming).

Ok, got all that down. Now, TODO:

·         Work on rabbit cages

o   Try out different tools for cutting the wire

o   Find the crimping tool and figure out where to get more of the little metal things

o   Cut the piece for the 30” X 36” cage

o   Measure the big cage piece

o   Reattach the wire to keep the roll from unrolling (disaster)

o   Cut the big piece

o   Crimp the 2 pieces onto their cages

o   Get K (!) to set up the big cage

o   Move bunnies (Yay!)

·         Well first I have to feed rabbits

·         Empty dishwasher

·         Fill dishwasher

·         Sort clean and dry clothes

·         Hang out laundry

·         Start another wash

·         Figure out how to cook chuck roast

·         Call neighbor re dinner

·         Call Justin re hay field

·         Find Mom’s insurance bills

·         Call Hart & Patterson to cancel appt with accountant

·         Call Pickering re toilet

·         Go through pile on small kitchen table

·         Pay bills

·         Revise lesson plan for next week

·         Start to revise lab handout for the week after

Am I done? Is that enough? Could I add anything like:

·         Spin white angora

·         Spin Crystal angora

·         Card blue wool for neice

·         Find something on line for other neices’ showers (yuck)

Well I guess I’d sure as hell better get to it.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries