This week was very busy and draining at work. Lots to do and not enough time to do it all in. (As usual). We are having our yearly 'evaluation' (the military have some crazy term for it that makes no sense, but whatev) next week and it has been crazy the amount of stuff they have 'reminded' me that I'm supposed to be looking after/doing/updating even though I never knew it in the first place....

I took my parents out for supper tonight because it was my mother's birthday this past week. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was good.

I downloaded the Hair Soundtrack and I'm listening to it right now on the comp. It's rocking. ROCKING. I sure do love this musical. I've also finished downloading Degressi TNG Season 5 so I'm preparing to kick back and relax and watch this.

Tomorrow morning we are going grocery shopping, then in the afternoon me and Andrew are going to go to the Santa Claus parade it should be fun and not too cold. I haven't been to the parade since I was in single digits. lol.

I only have about 6 dishcloths left to make and after that I am going to move into finishing the cross stitch for my aunt or maybe unraveling a sweater. I haven't done that in ages and I kind of miss it.

These are some of the dishcloths I've been working on. There's a dozen in that basket. I think they look so pretty...especially all in the basket like that.

This is my latest foray into plarn. I made this for a friend of a friend who said she would buy one off me if it had thick straps and very long straps. The bags are from Zellers in BC that my Granma brought back for me after her trip there.

I quite like the red and white. I think it looks super sharp. I even reinforced the straps. This sucker is not stretching at all. I was surprised at how well the red bags worked for crocheting. The bag worked up quite quickly...maybe I'm just getting better at working with the plarn. I think in total this took abotu 2.5 evenings to make (not counting making the plarn--my grandma actually made it all for me this time round...)

In other plarn news someone else wants me to make a bag. She only wants me to use that bags from the store she works at. I think this is a brilliant idea...as long as she doesn't just steal the bags but rather saves them up or gets customers to save them up. At first I thought that the bags were some kind of colour like green or red or purple...but no, they are simply white with green and yellow...

We need a new vacuum. But we don't want to spend a fortune on one but we want it to work like we did.

We have been to Wal-Mart and Superstore and looked at the vacuums, but really have no idea what to get. We know that we cannot spend more then 100 dollars before taxes and really the cheaper the better (but it still has to work good). We also know that it HAS to be bagless and not need further purchases of silly attachments/filters/gadgets/or gizmos.

What kind of vacuum do you have? What brand do you recommend? What do we need to know?

PS. Does anyone else think the way vacuum is spelled is completely ridiculous?

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day.

Please take the time to remember the veterans of the past and the veterans of today. Attend a ceremony.

The three of us will be at Vimy Ridge tomorrow at 10:30 for the ceremony there. It is the one I have always gone to. It's small and informal and meaningful. It won't be too long of a ceremony for Andrew and if need be him and Steve can go play in the adjacent park.

Where will you be?

On November 11, 1999 Terry Kelly was in a drug store in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. At 10:55 AM an announcement came over the store's PA asking customers who would still be on the premises at 11:00 AM to give two minutes of silence in respect to the veterans who have sacrificed so much for us.

Terry was impressed with the store's leadership role in adopting the Legion's "two minutes of silence" initiative. He felt that the store's contribution of educating the public to the importance of remembering was commendable.

When eleven o'clock arrived on that day, an announcement was again made asking for the "two minutes of silence" to commence. All customers, with the exception of a man who was accompanied by his young child, showed their respect.

Terry's anger towards the father for trying to engage the store's clerk in conversation and for setting a bad example for his child was channeled into a beautiful piece of work called, "A Pittance of Time".

I think it's official. Celery has beat Cucumber. I asked a lot of people and it always seemed about even, so I'm going with the one that i like the sounds of the best. I really like the eeeeeeeee sound at the end and the soft c.

I've been working on some business cards. I've even found a font that has a celery stalk as one of the letters. I have a tagline 'fresh, green, crunchy. delicious handmade items'. I've got plans for an etsy store. At some point I'm going to work on a website.

It's all happening....at my very slow pace....

Janis Joplin - Me and Bobby McGee
Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train

Circa 1996-2008

My best friend, sings this song when she's drunk. She especially sings it while drunk in the car on the way home from the bar. In my car, our friends cars, even taxis. I've heard her sing this song many times...dozens. She's a good singer. I've sang it with her--drunk and sober too. It's a good song to sing.

Tonight we are staying in sans child (he's gone to Grandma and Grandpas for a sleepover), watching Bones Season 2 and eating Spinach & Artichoke Dip with Taco chips. Yum-o!

Our income was not as much as expected this week so we are slightly poor. this is our version of saving money.

I went to Safeway after work tonight and somehow walked out spending 46.10! 46.10?!? How the heck is that saving money? I'm flabbergasted. What did I buy you ask? Not much...

Beef Jerky - 9.98 (total impulse buy and this is where I went wrong)
Tortilla Chips - 3.09
Pineapple Bits - 4/5.00 (another not-so-wise purchase. i wanted to get 1 can of pineapple chunks so i could make sweet & sour chicken another day...and got sucked into the 4/5 deal...which is not as great as I initially thought)
Artichoke Hearts - 3.52
Cream cheese - 7.38 (I got 2 packages...and I don't think I need to for the recipe, but I didn't want to run short...)
Frozen Spinach - 1.79
Mozzarella - 6.49 (again, this is more cheese then needed for the recipe but the little blocks of cheese were the same price as this big one so I went with the big one)
Parmesan - 4.49 (holy jeebers expensive!)
Frozen Potstickers - 3.99 (these were on clearance...regular 11.99)

For the total of 46.10. I want to divide this up and figure out how much this meal at home is costing...When I add up all the ingredients that will be used in this dish (not factoring in the leftover component of cream cheese and mozzarella) we get 26.76. Divide that by 2 and we get 13.38! Add in the the 3.99 potstickers which I am also going to cook tonight and we get a meal that is 16 dollars each for me and Steve (30.75 total). Steve will probably pick up some beers (but he would have done that regardless) and I might have a rye and coke (which I already have on hand). So even if we add in say 10 bucks for Beer then it is 40 bucks and we're still coming out ahead! Even more ahead because we have the beautiful LEFTOVERS. I love leftovers.

This is WAY cheaper then our usual Friday night fare. Generally when we go out to eat on a Friday or Saturday night we drop 60 bucks minimum. Minimum. Often it is closer to 100 bucks.

I'm feeling better about staying in tonight already now.

Now on to the 15.99 chicken wings. Steve really likes chicken wings so I was going to pick up a box of frozen wings to go along with the artichoke dip but holy crap they were 15.99!!!!! 15.99. So I ditched the idea of the wings and bought the 3.99 potstickers. When did frozen chicken wings become so expensive? I definitely noticed that the price of food seems higher then it used to. I'm also hoping that items were more expensive at Safeway because it's Safeway and more upscale then Superstore where we do 995 of our shopping at.

Now I'm off to make the dip. I hope it tastes marvelous...

I am pleased to report that I currently have the following crafty orders on the go right now...

1. 10 dishcloths for A (1 done now)
2. 12 dishcloths for C (10 done now)
3. 2 dishcloths for K (done!)
4. 1 plarn messenger bag (found a pattern--sort of--will start Friday night)
5. 1 plarn bag for A (i have one done for her)

Not to shabby. I can't wait to take pictures of all the stuff once I'm finished.

Once I finish all that I want to start making Andrew's other slipper for Christmas. I also made one slipper for my aunt so I need to make the other one now. Really, I still have a ton of Christmas presents to make.

I've also got this crafty plan to make a bag for my aunt out of a t-shirt she gave Andrew for Christmas a few years ago (I've seen some neat bags like that on Etsy and here but haven't had the time to try anything yet). Can we say crafters ADD? hah!

I have not forgotten about the idea posts I've made and not followed through yet. We have the cutlery case plan that I still plan on making, and I am still eager to fuse plastic. Not enough hours in the day to do all the crafting that I want.

I've also got to finish a swack of cross stitches for Christmas...I think I've taken on more then I can handle...again...

Johnny Cash-- Hurt

Every time I hear this song I thing of Phillips.

Phillips was singer I met right after the debacle of Serge and right before Chris. He was gorgeous and smart and funny and intelligent and best of all he liked me. We never really went out, but we hung out and fooled around for a few weeks. They were an amazing few weeks. We talked for hours about incredibly serious topics and he sang to me and I sang back and he encouraged me to sing even though I am tone deaf, we went out and had fun. He had just broken up with a girl and I was still screwed up from Paul.

After the whole bizarre courtship-that-didn't-go-anywhere ended we decided to be friends and one night he took me to meet his friends where I saw this video for the first time.

I remember it being on the computer and me and Phillips stood in the doorway and watched it. It's overwhelming and powerful and I remember we held hands and felt sobered by the beauty of the song and the beauty of the graphics.

That moments is frozen in time for me. It was short. 4 Minutes only. But it was a long 4 minutes.