Black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving!

I ate too much, of course. We had our turkey day feast with our friends and their relatives: 12 people in all, I think. We did most of the preparations ahead of time- Jamie baked sweet potatoes and had green bean casserole ready to bake. Tig made bread dough, there was a pecan pie made and ready to eat.

We ended up not going to Tig's parent's house because they came down with something, and I really missed them there. Instead, an uncle loaned his house while he went to visit others over in Medford. Everyone brought things they needed.

Tig made cinnamon rolls first. The bottoms of most burned, but they were demolished anyway, before the icing was even created. I think 4 actually got iced, but by then the vegetable tray was ready with ranch dip and crackers. Val made a baked turkey, which took forever. It is difficult for several people to cook and prepare things at once in one kitchen with one oven. Our 2pm planned dinner wasn't ready until 5pm. The sweet potatoes were staying warm on the stove burners while waiting for oven time, but half of them burned(the half with tons of walnuts, oh poo). Badly burned, so that the lady who owned the borrowed glass pan told us to throw it away. I think Jamie overruled that foolishness and chipped out the black for her. The turkey fryer also decided to act up by not working. Something must have been stuck in the valve, but eventually it was unplugged and allowed the fire to go full-blast so the turkey could hop in the oil jacuzzi. We finished most of the rest of the meal, and then people hurt themselves by adding the fried turkey on top. Then we hurt ourselves again with pie. One lady made a pumpkin pie completely from scratch. As in- she grew the pumpkin too. She told me how she made it and now I want to make one next year, the thing was absolutely delicious.

Why won't the fryer work?

 Turkey surgery.

It won't hurt, 'cause you're dead, and you're certainly lucky you are, 

'cause it's gonna be hot in my big silver pot...! Gosh I love deep-fried turkeys, don't you? (doo, doo, doo)

Ding!, turkey's done.

Oven-baked turkey with stuffing.

My beloved sweet potatoes! Those marshmallows are just like s'mores on top. This has to be my favorite part of Thanksgiving.

Green bean casserole.

Our friends discovered a great deal on a Kinect at Walmart, so we braved pre-Black-Friday crowds to see if we could get one. The sales were supposed to happen at 10PM. We got there at 9:05 and they were sold out. Explain that one to me?

In any case, I will be taking advantage of the crazy sales also, to get zippers. I have a coupon for 25% off a total purchase at Jo-Ann's. This includes sale prices, and is the reason why I shop there. I can go and get something already discounted, and pay even less for it. So I should be able to get all the various zippers I need for Jamie's Scottejacket for a song. Yay. 

I have the layout of all those pockets complete, and almost have all of them cut out into usable pattern pieces. I can't wait to start construction. This thing should be the most complicated garment I've ever made so far. If you can believe it, I've altered the design slightly to add EVEN MORE pockets. You'll see when I'm done. You know I won't be able to keep from bragging if the jacket is even half as cool as I hope it will be.

And now it's time to break out the jingle bells! Every year since becoming a school bus driver, I've worn big jingle bells on my shoes from Thanksgiving break to winter break. They called me Tinkerbell in Jacksonville for it. Jingle bells make me very happy, so now I get to finally wear them. I also have all those holiday earrings which were super-cheap after the holidays were over. Santas and penguins and more jingle bells!

I'll be back soon to tell you all about the bike ride that Jamie and I went on, and of course to share anything else interesting that happens.

My family is also moving from Florida to Colorado to be with my other sister. Drive safe you guys! <3

Monday, and I'm still alive.

I am very grateful for my job. Where else could I work to make almost a decent living at something enjoyable, and yet have enough days off to coincide with major illnesses? Sometimes I even get to enjoy no-school days without being sick! But not this weekend.

Someone (who needs to DIAFF, by the way) came to my friend and roommate's vet office with a nasty StomachBug virus. Poor T came home sick but in good spirits, telling us she got parvo. She really wasn't in good spirits, I determined, after looking it up. It's a bad virus that wikipedia says has a 91% mortality rate untreated.
Anyway, as you can imagine, the entire household proceeded to come down sick and we were all wishing we were dead (least I was) because then we couldn't throw up anymore. Four and a half (Marty got sick too) people in dire straights with ONE bathroom. I consider myself lucky in that I had a milder form- I only got sick twice and I made sure to do nothing but sleep the rest of the time. Still, recovery from that kind of purging is not a quick endeavor. I feel like I fit a whole week worth of biking into one day today. Hopefully I don't feel like I have to wimp out and drive later.

So, that little event also threw a hiccup into my crafty plans, and there has been zero progress on Jamie's scottejacket contraption. I'm really feeling the lack of space, because not only do I have a monster folding table which I think is a pain to manhandle to usable condition, but then I work a tiny bit between routes or after, and have to pack it all up again. I miss my Flagler porch and desk where I could let things blow up for a little while while I got things going. In any case, I have to finish the jacket because next I really want to make my bike accessories. I found out in a hurry that my fanny pack is not weatherproof and everything inside got wet. I'm using a plastic bag over my seat now to keep the frost off it (but I'm ridiculously happy to see it on my bike in the morning, and walk it through the door of work saying good morning very cheerfully to all the not-yet-fully-caffeinated drivers). I want to make the handlebar bag and now also a seat cover.

However, the weekend was not a total throw-away. I got a new phone!
Our aircard, which has been sucking up dollars every month because it cost too much to cancel, was finally ready for an upgrade. So we converted it to a phone line for the low family plan price, and it gets a phone. Which is really my phone after 24 hours so the computer won't screw things up. It is a Samsung Replenish. This is the step up from the Samsung Reclaim that I have, with android and touch screen technology. I'm still not sure I like the touch screen to have to answer phone calls, but it's lovely for almost everything else. The best part is that this phone has a keyboard still, so I don't have to flat-tap if I happen to have good nails. My only concern is that the thing is big. My old Reclaim slides open to show the keyboard, and the new Replenish  is just a bar design, the same size all the time. The power button feature unlocking the screen and keypad should be nice- I won't be accidentally dialing anyone (or randomly powering off my phone!)anymore.

So that was my weekend. I hope everyone else's was tons better!

Public Bikes Contest

This is my photo for a contest to win a Public brand bicycle. You can see my entry HERE (clicky) and like or +1 to vote for me. First prize bicycle goes to the most creative, and the second prize goes to the entry with the most shares, so please help out! If you could point your friends to it also, I would appreciate it muchly. Thanks!

Snow!

Hi everyone, it's been a little while. After building our new room inside the house, computers were moved, and then everything from the camper was also transferred inside. My computer desk was buried for a little while. That's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it!

Lots of things are new or have happened lately, the biggest being that I've cut my hair! It went from this:

 To THIS:

 It's half gone, and I love it.

Then, Halloween was here and my husband surprised me with a pumpkin, so of course I had to carve it.

Tig says the picture doesn't do it justice- that is the happiest freakin pumpkin she has ever seen.

She dressed up to match her daughter. Marty was an adorable little dragon, and her mom was a sorceress with a nifty shiny silver sash and fancy hair jewelry.

I thought staying at home was boring, so at the last minute when we decide to go with Marty out, I helped Jamie become a ninja. He makes a very scary ninja. I wouldn't want to mess with him.

Little dragon Marty didn't care much for her hat (can you guess why from her picture?), so even I got to join in on the costume fun!

Rawr!

And last but not least in my photo documentations- it's snowing!! TWC showed me the weather warning over the weekend calling for snow Wednesday or Thursday, and it finally got here. So I squeal in happiness and run out with my camera while Jamie is still getting dressed, and here are some pictures.

Camaro from this...

To this!

Zoomie is getting snowed on. I promptly went back inside and came out with a shopping bag to cover my seat with, and brought my helmet inside.

Snow in my hair!

I'm about to get pegged with Jamie's first snowball...

Happy for snow!

Welcome November!

A Long Busy Weekend

This weekend started early, but I'm really glad to go back to work today.

Thursday and Friday were no-school days due to conferences. Thursday was spent sleeping a lot. I didn't wake up for anything until almost 1pm. I think its funny how my dogs are every bit as lazy as I feel like being. In bed all morning long? No problem, we'll support you in that endeavor, hehe.

Friday I was confused, thinking it should be Saturday. We got notification that even though we'd checked, we missed a statute somewhere. Even though the housing people don't mind there being a camper in the second driveway with people sleeping in it, the county does. It counts as camping, which can only be done in designated camping areas. I really wanted a tent to pop up next door so I could throw that back in their faces. No camping out kids, county says no! The neighbors really must have called everyone they could think of to make a nuisance of themselves. I hope they are religious and believe in that do-unto-your-neighbor junk. And that they then end up in a situation where they depend on friends for assistance. And then I want some jerk neighbors of those to do everything in their power to F it all up. I believe this would be a much better alternative than some that entered my mind.

Why do people have to be so nosy, and then offended when what they find is not to their liking? I don't go around telling everyone to paint everything green because that happens to be MY favorite color. I appreciate that other people have their own favorite colors. (The world would be very boring in all green anyway, I think.)

We tried to go to Home Depot that night to get supplies. Jamie priced things out and realized we had enough to do the project right then, which is a good thing. We were notified of the possible $750 fine, but only given a as-soon-as-possible deadline to fix the situation. That's sort of an ambiguous uncomfortable feeling of $750 doom, you know? The store was closed, however. The website lied about their hours, and at 8:30pm the employees all turn into pumpkins. I saw them all outside.

So Saturday morning we were up at 6am purchasing wood and insulation. We got home and Jamie made us girls french toast for breakfast. Tig left the house with yummy breakfast, and I had a happy full tummy to tackle the project with.

I don't have photos, but the wall-building actually went fairly trouble-free. We had trouble getting the door in just the perfect spot to clear both the outside light (this room used to be a car port) and concrete step. But finally we got it. The insulation was a little fun. It didn't look to me like enough, but it was squished really well. We had about 10 feet extra. It was 6 inch insulation and we were using 2x4s, so the last piece, which had time to expand, was trying to escape as the plywood was being screwed in over it. Kind of funny. The door is an extra one our friends had. They replaced the door to little Marty's room with an exterior one, so they could cut out the decorative panels on top and screen them, making it nice and open for sound to travel through, but still keep cats out if need be. We get the original door for the new wall.

Eventually I think the camper will be removed, but both Tig and I want it to stay as the eyesore that irritates the neighbor in the first place. We can comply with county rules and not really change anything in that regard. I'm evil, I guess. If the trailer gets moved I may park my bike out in front of our new exit door. There is a tiny space between the room and the fence- just right for a bike and not much else.

There was trouble with this particular room leaking. I think we fixed that, because yesterday I spent 2 hours up on the roof throwing junk off it. Jamie helped clean out the gutter with a hose and I had latex gloves on while I jammed my fingers in the alleys of the corrugated metal to scoop out the black and earthy-smelling stuff that I bet would make excellent potting soil by now. Today the backs of my hands are slightly bruised from doing the scooping, but at the time nothing was uncomfortable in the slightest. I fed the hose in from various spots and little by little I washed the stuff that I couldn't scoop out carefully down to the gutter exit. After we got the gutter completely clear I spent the second hour clearing the higher side so it didn't get washed down and undo all that clearing work. The gutter has only one downspout so it wouldn't take much to block things up again. We're pretty certain that the leaks should be fixed, now.

I also got to wear my new helmet today! On Friday I was given a field trip to take a football team from one school to the other local school. Easy. Turns out, it was an accidental double trip due to a time change. The players were already loaded on the bus that had been sitting there for hours, so I got to drive right back down the road to the bus shop and park. I took advantage of the great timing of a text message  to go the rest of the way to Walmart and get the helmet set they had just notified me was available for pickup.

I got the Kryptonics 4-in-1 ladies set which includes a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist pads, an extra thicker front pad to help get a better fit on the helmet, and a flower sticker. They all come in a pretty light blue color, although if there was pink, I'd have gotten pink.

The color is actually lighter than in this picture from the Kryptonics website, and my buckles and such are a matching gray instead of black, with the exception of the little rubber ring which keeps extra strap length from flapping around. This is the helmet though, and I like it a lot. It's really just a plastic shell with styrofoam inside. but its awesome for its simplicity. I figured with less vents, this helmet would be more appropriate for winter, but it actually has very good airflow inside. My forehead was always hot in my Airius helmet, and this one has air going straight there instead. Even though it was 36F outside this morning (didn't feel nearly as cold as I thought it was) the air was refreshing. When it gets too cold to enjoy the breeze, though, I can fit a winter hat under here. The first time I put the new helmet on, though, I pinched a blood blister into my neck, so I'll have to be more careful. Also, there is a gap in the inner pads they call a ponytail channel so hair won't get caught on anything, but there really isn't any room for a ponytail. I'd have to scoop out some of the styrofoam, which I'm not about to do. I really don't mind this part, because with my other helmet, hair had to be either down, or in a braided ponytail anyway. Not having to thread hair through the cinching back plastic strap is fine with me.

I fail at keeping these short.