Wordless Wednesday - Tall

...is what my boy is...

Wordless Wednesday - the Start of Football Season

Wordless Wednesday (on Thursday...)

Exercise Hurts

A conversation with my 7-year old son this morning:

On waking him to go to school:

E: "Mommy, my stomach hurts!"
Me: "E, it's just the second day of school!" Bending over (being somewhat paranoid of such things as appendicitis...), "where does it hurt?"
E: "All over..."
Me: Reaching down to press on his stomach, "Here? Here?"
E miserably: "Yes..."
Me thinking, "Ummmm...did you do a lot of leg lifts at football yesterday?"
E: "Yes."
Me straightening, "Well, honey, I think you've got good old muscle soreness. Nothing you can do about it. It will get better on its own."
E whining, "But it hurts!"
Me: "I know, sweetheart. Feel the burn."

I love this poem

Warning
by Jenny Joseph

WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Craft Update

Yep. Still being crafty. First I will update on the Christmas stocking I am making for E. This is where I was last month. And this is where I am now. Good progress being made, I think. I have finished Santa and have started working on the bag of toys.


And I finished the quilt I was making for E. Here it is:

It isn't perfect. I didn't square up the squares as well as I should have and the binding is only s0-s0 but this is really the first real quilt I have ever made. I call it a quilt but it was really designed to be a wall hanging. Doesn't matter. E likes it. Next time I might tackle a full-size quilt.

I have also finished the top for a fleecy quilt/blanket for my niece's baby. I think it came out really nice. It is similar to a blanket/quilt I made before except this one I personalized with the baby's name. I just need to put the backing on it, quilt it and bind the edges.

I am also crocheting a blanket and a little dress for the baby. The blanket will match the dress which matches some booties I have already made. This is what the dress will look like except I am not using pink. I am using a really pretty variegated yarn. I haven't decided if I am going to make the hat & booties either (and that's not the blanket I am making either...just the dress...maybe the booties & hat). I have a pair of booties already made using the variegated yarn so if I make these I may just make them in pink & white. This pattern is a 6 month pattern so if I make it it should fit little Ava in December. Perfect, I think. Booties & baby hats don't take very long to make anyway. I can whip them out in an evening or two.

I hope to finish all the baby things by the end of this month so I can get them mailed to her by May sometime. Baby is due in June.

A few minutes in my life...

So today it felt like I had…something…in my eye. So I take out my mirror and start poking my fingers in my eye trying to pry the elusive hair off of my cornea. Then I notice a great big scratch on my eye. AGHGHGHGHG!!! A giant scratch on my eye! Wait a minute…why doesn’t it hurt more?

Then I notice the exact. Same. Scratch. On my other eye. AHGHGHGH!! Wait. Oh yeah. Reflection of the lights.

Am an idiot.

But at least the hair is gone.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Okay. Now I think this is funny. Please tell me that I am not the only one. I don't think I would mind having him in the seat next to me. Here are my reasons:

• He wouldn't hog the armrest
• I could steal his airline meal (if they still served these)
• I could steal his peanuts
• I could order extra drinks for him (and then drink them myself)
  
• ...and charge his credit card
• He wouldn't talk to me when I wanted to read/sleep/space out

...seems like the perfect seatmate to me.

Wordless Wednesday: I got nothin...

A picture of a cute kid is always appropriate...

So Cool

Well, folks, it looks like very soon I am going to be very, very wealthy. Yes I have been invited to go into the oil business with a company doing business in venezuela. I will be a 'patner' with Ms. Briggs and look forward to dumping buckets of money into my bank account.

My name is Mel Diana Briggs, an engineer/geologist. I own Rocket OilServices, a support company to Shell Petroleum Dev Company. My company doesoil prospecting, oil site reading and shallow exploration for shell. I amcurrently in Venezuela where i have had the opportunity to do oil deals with
a few sister company explorers, and a few indigenous oil rig engineers.
Together, we engage in oil deals which involve bunkerring and quick syphoning of crude oil through specially rented barges to Mexico and Chile.
Proceeds from the oil sales are paid for in Dollars and eventually wired through the Venezuellan banks to banks in England. Payments are made this
way due to the hard-line policies of Hugo Chavez(venezuelan president) whohas launched an animosity against america and some of their allies. By way of rigorous transfer of funds, i lose so much of my share of the proceeds from sales because this is a secret deal which Shell is not aware of.
Already, proceeds made from sales amount to $80million. And due to local restrictions in Venezuela, i cannot invest these monies here because of my
imigration status. As such, i need a patner whom i can work with for the movement and investment of these monies. I need someone i can trust as a
patner, who will assist me in moving this money, and whose company name we are going to use in investing the money into more lucrative businesses.
For your participation: you shall get 20% of the $80million before the investment proper. And if you wish to be part of the lucrative investments
mentioned above, we shall talk better terms. Please do let me know your position on this proposal so that we can proceed.

I am preparing to quit my job and have put money down on a new Porche. See you all in the Swiss Alps.

Craftiness

It seems I am always working on some crafty thing or other. For instance this past Christmas when I should have been working on this:

...and I was working on this instead:

I haven't quite decided what to do with that little birth announcement thingy. I initially started it for E (since he is now seven years old I thought it might be time to finish one of these for him), but I found another one in my stash that I might make for him. I might put this up on Etsy (yes, I have a shop there tho' I haven't put anything up for sale there or anything...) but I am sure I can't get out of it the effort I put in to it (I'll bet there are a couple of hundred of hours of work in that). Even if I charged a hundred dollars for it (would someone pay a hundred dollars for that??), I am making way less than a buck an hour. Not exactly a get rich quick scheme.

After I finished the birth thingy I went back to the Christmas stocking (obviously didn't finish it in time for Christmas but I will for this year). Anyway...then I found out that my niece was going to have a baby, so I made this:

(yes, I ran out of blue ONE ROW before finishing; I think it looks good this way too...)

I made a little pair of booties too (I can finish a pair of those in an evening) and am trying to decide what I want to make next for her.

Oh, yeah...E decided he wanted me to make a quilt for him. I have the top almost all done (no pic yet...maybe next week). It is a pattern called 'radiating squares' and looks pretty cool.

Well, that is some of what I do in my spare time.

PG-rated swear words

Was thinking the other day about swear words (obviously I have too much time on my hands). I have a child now and although I was never a real big cusser (it still makes me uncomfortable to actually say the 'f' word...although I can write it: fuck - see?), I think that I have to stop saying at least the Big Ones: shit, damn and hell. And the 'f' word, of course, fuck (heh...that probably upped my hit count...).

I should probably also cut out fart and bitch. I use them way too much. Someone once said that adding a yummy food group after a derogatory makes it less dirty. Terms such as:

• twatwaffle
• cuntpickle
• skankmuffin
• whorecracker

are funnier than they are dirty.

The word 'douche', while itself not really a dirty word becomes funny/demeaning/dirty when different beginnings or endings are added:

• douchewizzle
• douchebag
• douche canoe
• douchefish
• flaming douchebag
• douche-a-rooney

Adding 'knocker' after words makes them funny/dirty:

• fartknocker
• bitchknocker
• doucheknocker

The word 'crap' (which I would not consider particularly dirty seems to have made some list at my 7-year old's school as he chastised me for using it the other day) lends itself to adding an interesting ending as in:

• craptastic
• crapalicious
• crappity crap crap
  

I have always loved "smarmy bastard." It just seems to roll off the tongue (e.g. "...he was such a smarmy bastard I simply wanted to hurl..."). Lately "batshit crazy" has been a favorite of mine as well.

These are not really swear words, but they are funny:

• dillweed
• dorkfish

Okay, now I have shared some of my favorites, I wanna hear some more...anyone?

Wordless Wednesday: WTF, Amazon?

Was this really the best choice of box for shipping this item??

Battle of the Sexes

She: "Gigolo"

He: "Cougar"

She: "He says that like it's a bad thing"

Nerdiness

I finally got around to downloading some pics from my camera the other day (okay, it was yesterday) and guess what? I found some Christmas pictures! Guess what I was doing on Christmas morning?

Yes. I am a nerd. Yes. I am the one who puts this crap together. Yes. I am insane.

But at least I am coordinated: