Plan Well

I can't express myself with just one simple page

Projects

There is a reason that I have not posted. I have been given signs. Many of them in fact. Some lessons that I refuse to learn. First, I need to do things myself and stop hiring handy-man or professional. They all lie or mislead. At least, if I hire someone, I need to learn how to check their work. Just click on "contractors" in my tag cloud and you will see. It started two months ago. I noticed water damage to the ceiling of my craft room/office. I called the handy man. He has disappeared . It happened again. They always disappear. This guy has been missing for weeks before the leak. I patiently waited . On a cool day I went into the attic to investigate. You didn't think that I would go up there when it was blazing hot just because it was leaking did you? Silly reader. This is what I found. The roof vent for the bathroom exhaust fan did not have a closing flap to keep the water from wrecking my ceiling . AND the screws used to anchor it to the ceiling were incorrect. The vent tube had been attached with duct tape and had come loose. I would have discovered the water problems earlier if it had been falling on my head when I brushed my teeth. Instead it get water stains on the ceiling of the bedroom next door after weeks of it leaky. This is what it should have looked like. What I had going on in my attic was a hot funky mess. When I had it repaired Monday, the contractor had me inspect everything and check that the flap worked to keep the water out. Maybe now, I have learned my lesson. On Sunday the toilet started leaking. Isn't that funny? As if it knew that I had hired someone to fix the roof cap. It would have leaked for an entire day if there had not been a hole in the bathroom floor where the water flowed to drop onto the kitchen floor. I had been mopping the kitchen floor all morning and I was beginning to think the cats were peeing on the floor. See, I discovered the leak when the water landed on my head. I had to replace the entire bowl kit and have the floor sealed. This is a great website for you do-it-yourselfer http://www.acehardware.com/sm-repairing-toilets--bg-1280889.html. I could have done it myself without the contractor. Well, back to the original reason for hiring the new contractor. Yes, the moist basement.... When he came to assess the problem he determined that I first needed to build up the foundation. Second lesson - get a better understanding of volume So, I called the county recycling division and had 4 cu yd of topsoil dumped onto my driveway. Note: Always call the city or county before calling a professional company when you need landscaping materials. I got the mulch for the city forestry department. I should have remembered that I have no real understanding of what a cubic yard looks like. First the mulch and now the topsoil. Had I reviewed that blog entry, I would not have ordered so much topsoil. After he finished applying the topsoil around the foundation of my house, there was (of course) a lot left over. I was very concerned. The next day was Halloween and there are many options that children/pranksters have on that day. They could see the huge pile of dirt as an invitation to play. They could be frightened by the huge pile of dirt or think that it is a part of some stage Halloween show. The parents would avoid a house with a huge pile of dirt. Well wouldn't you? I thought about putting a sign on the topsoil. Then abandoned it. I was beginning to think that the Heavens were telling me not to hand out candy this year. Third lesson - Plan well. I am trying to go out of town tomorrow. I have had to get all of these repairs completed, pack, detail my car, get the car fixed, do homework and pay bills before I leave. In preparation, yesterday during lunch I took my car in for repairs. I learned that my warranty expired last year and the notices probably went to my mother's house. I was looking at $300 for wear and tear repairs. And many more....So, what did I do? I bought a new car. So much for getting the old one detailed.

Frizzy Hooker Yarn Stash Afghan Blanket Lil Sis is having a baby and I have lots of yarn to share! This pattern is a great way to reduce yarn and decrease the cat's number of play things. Cat Mat Kitty is using this mat right now before the sides have been completed. I wonder if she will let me finish it. I B Knitty Great Escape Cape I have been working on this item on an off for about 6 months. Which ,of course, I regret because it is getting cold. Knotted Openwork Shawl This shawl is a funny story. I thought that I had memorized the pattern --- not quite. When it was done, it was quite oblong. I have had to unravel it twice.

[none]

The following are some of my Catverbs*. 1. Kittens are only cute on TV and in Calendars.   If you have ever had kittens (plural) in your home you know what I mean. They destroy, whine and are constantly underfoot. Literally, underfoot. You are on watch for scratching, clawing, mewing, pooping, and jumping. You beg all of your friends and most strangers to take them off of your hands. The Animal Shelter is always full. And the only hope is a drive to the country. Stray kittens will always be worse. This year, there have been three sets of kittens in my backyard. One set was caught in May and taken to the animal place for adoption. The second set lost their mom and resisted our efforts to catch them . The two still live behind Lydia and my garages and are about 6 months in age. Fortunately for us, they have been fixed. No yowling or heat screams but there is the poop in my yard that they do for fun while they live on Lydia's porch. Right now, there are three kittens that seem to defy being caught. The animal organization will only take the kittens with their mom. Lydia has put out animal traps for the past three weeks. Once the mom was caught and we only had to catch the kittens. As Nature has decided in her wisdom to make kittens light as a feather; the kittens were too light to trip the latch and trap them inside of the old cage. They leisurely ate the food and went on their way. We seem to keep catching the same cats but not the ones we want. Lydia was able to catch two strays and get them fixed. Since that time, they have found the animal trap to be their personal restaurant. Instead of avoiding the site of their capture they visit it frequently to eat the food left there to attract the mom-stray. If you have lost count, that means there are 6 stray cats in and around my yard. 2. If a cat is permitted to jump on furniture, no one will eat your dish at pot-lucks. I don't mean to gross you out but you will find cat hair on everything you eat if cats are jumping around. I find a good sweeping 30 or so minutes before I cook and locking the cats up gives me piece of mind. Be wary of anyone who asks you about your dish at the office potluck. They will avoid your food for fear of eating cat hair. I would suggest that you bring store bought food or something that you can put together at the office and pretend that it was never in your house. Or you can just say, "I would love to make something for the potluck but I have a cat." 3. If a cat pees in your car, it is time to get a new car. I had heard stories about angry cats that pee in their owner's cars or the cars of their owner's boyfriends. Don't piss off a cat...... I had a cat pee on my futon. I cleaned it probably 12 times. The smell was gone but the memory of the action remained. I eventually sold the frame to a friend and threw the mattress away. When my co-worker's cat pee'd in his car I warned him. Not only would he never get the smell out but his regard for his car would be forever changed. Notwithstanding, how he felt about the cat. He assured me that he would get the smell out. After two months of chemical sprays, he went to the junk yard and purchased a new seat. I warned him that a new seat was not the problem. The car would never be the same. It died a few weeks later. I laughed my tail off. 4. The more money you spend on a cat toy, the less they play with it. My cat has a collection of hair ties that she has hidden somewhere in the house. I estimate that she has 20 or so ties somewhere. The truth of the matter is that anything not nailed down is a cat's toy! Sad isn't it? They will claim anything for their enjoyment. My cat likes to bite plastic bags. If I leave a department store bag of returns on the floor, I will find little round holes from her teeth marks everywhere. I have made for her several yarn balls so that she will leave my working yarn balls alone. Well, those are some of my catverbs. Cats are great creatures. I love them but Kitty will be my last one forever. Do you have any catverbs? Catverb - a saying that reflects a fact about cats Now that Yahoo 360 is changing into a new product, I am experimenting with different blog hosts.   I have a Wordpress, LiveJournal and I use both Facebook and MySpace but......  How do you tell which is better?

Current Projects Great Escape Cape Cat Mat Knotted Openwork Shawl

My Profile

Sometimes when I am taking the 75 yard walk to the Ladies restroom, I find that my mind starts thinking as if I am writing a Blog. It is beginning to bother me that my internal speak is blogspeak. It is as if I am talking to myself in such as way as to invite others to comment. What has become even more disconcerting is that sometimes I find myself talking aloud. One day, I am going to freak someone out in the restroom. Actually, I have been verbalizing my inner thoughts more and more lately. I want it to stop. I guess that I should blog more and then the internal speeches will stop. It is hard to sit in front of the computer screen and just type. I get distracted by the Internet radio stream. I want to look up the artist. Or I hear the chime of a secure page timing out and I need to check on whatever I was doing. I might be thirsty and I have to get a glass of water. There are any number of distractions that keep me from writing a blog more often. Right now, I can look around my desk and see any number of unfinished items that need my attention. So, I will follow the pattern of other bloggers and just write my random thoughts. Writing of my office, I hate it. It is gray, modular walls with one window that stops about four feet from the ground. I can only see people that are obviously taller than four feet when they walk by. I have to keep my door open or people will peer through the window. That is creepy. There are no windows to the outside. Just more modular walls. Update on my online course. The instructor for my online class appeared finally. Get this, she is at her cottage on the lake where a power surge fried her computer. She logs into the course from the library at her leisure. I am mad at her. I wish I had a cottage on the lake where I could be paid to teach an online course with a syllabus that follows 2006 dates and content that is utterly confusing. I am still hearing things..... I was visiting some sites to learn tips on writing a good profile. Yes, yes I know that I have a lot of programs running. All of a sudden, my computer tells me to "type in the text box to hear me talk." I freaked out! I looked around. I look behind the wall to see if a short person was there throwing her voice. Nothing. I called my co-worker to my office to ask for assistance. By the time she got to my office I scrolled down the page to find Just so we are clear: Online ads should not be verbally interactive. But I was finally able to explain the strange events of last week..... After my heart slowed down. I got back the task of drafting a new profile description. I have become obsessed with the writing of a good profile description. I have read some really good blogger profiles. People are very interesting. I am very interesting but I can not figure out how to commit my personality to an online profile. The instructor for my online course has a profile that makes her seem very competent........ I have seen profiles that have been just a series of answered questions to prompts like "My favorite book is....." I don't know if I want to do that. I want to describe myself to the reader but I don't want to open myself up to the world. Or do I? I am going to just list some words and let you put them together. So here goes I am...... silly poetic nappy average enlightened sleepy natural crocheting loving allergic kin bored curvy far-sighted Midwestern talented colorful cotton dry growing reading laughing fun sneezing jogging yoga knitting clever thankful

Current Projects Great Escape Cape This is the first panel. Cat Mat Knotted Openwork Shawl

Your turn

Catverbs

I wanted to share with you some of my Catverbs. 1. Kittens are only cute on TV and in Calendars. If you have ever had kittens (plural) in your home you know what I mean. They destroy, whine and are constantly underfoot. Literally, underfoot. You are on watch for scratching, clawing, mewing, pooping, and jumping. You beg all of your friends and most strangers to take them off of your hands. The Animal Shelter is always full. And the only hope is a drive to the country. Stray kittens will always be worse. This year, there have been three sets of kittens in my backyard. One set was caught in May and taken to the animal place for adoption. The second set lost their mom and resisted our efforts to catch them . The two still live behind Lydia and my garages and are about 6 months in age. Fortunately for us, they have been fixed. No yowling or heat screams but there is the poop in my yard that they do for fun while they live on Lydia's porch. Right now, there are three kittens that seem to defy being caught. The animal organization will only take the kittens with their mom. Lydia has put out animal traps for the past three weeks. Once the mom was caught and we only had to catch the kittens. As Nature has decided in her wisdom to make kittens light as a feather; the kittens were too light to trip the latch and trap them inside of the old cage. They leisurely ate the food and went on their way. We seem to keep catching the same cats but not the ones we want. Lydia was able to catch two strays and get them fixed. Since that time, they have found the animal trap to be their personal restaurant. Instead of avoiding the site of their capture they visit it frequently to eat the food left there to attract the mom-stray. If you have lost count, that means there are 6 stray cats in and around my yard. 2. If a cat is permitted to jump on furniture, no one will eat your dish at pot-lucks. I don't mean to gross you out but you will find cat hair on everything you eat if cats are jumping around. I find a good sweeping 30 or so minutes before I cook and locking the cats up gives me piece of mind. Be wary of anyone who asks you about your dish at the office potluck. They will avoid your food for fear of eating cat hair. I would suggest that you bring store bought food or something that you can put together at the office and pretend that it was never in your house. Or you can just say, "I would love to make something for the potluck but I have a cat." 3. If a cat pees in your car, it is time to get a new car. I had heard stories about angry cats that pee in their owner's cars or the cars of their owner's boyfriends. Don't piss off a cat...... I had a cat pee on my futon. I cleaned it probably 12 times. The smell was gone but the memory of the action remained. I eventually sold the frame to a friend and threw the mattress away. When my co-worker's cat pee'd in his car I warned him. Not only would he never get the smell out but his regard for his car would be forever changed. Notwithstanding, how he felt about the cat. He assured me that he would get the smell out. After two months of chemical sprays, he went to the junk yard and purchased a new seat. I warned him that a new seat was not the problem. The car would never be the same. It died a few weeks later. I laughed my tail off. 4. The more money you spend on a cat toy, the less they play with it. My cat has a collection of hair ties that she has hidden somewhere in the house. I estimate that she has 20 or so ties somewhere. The truth of the matter is that anything not nailed down is a cat's toy! Sad isn't it? They will claim anything for their enjoyment. My cat likes to bite plastic bags. If I leave a department store bag of returns on the floor, I will find little round holes from her teeth marks everywhere. I have made for her several yarn balls so that she will leave my working yarn balls alone. Well, those are some of my catverbs. Cats are great creatures. I love them but Kitty will be my last one forever. Do you have any catverbs? Catverb - a saying that reflects a fact about cats

Current Projects Great Escape Cape Cat Mat Knotted Openwork Shawl

Artificial Intelligence?

The strangest thing happened to me today.

I was reading some articles on-line and I began to hear a car vooming. I figured that there was some kind of car chase on Law & Order so I looked at the TV. It was an office scene. No car chase. I saw Dective Rey talking to Briscoe, looking great in their suits.

A few minutes later, I heard what sounded like birds chirping. I became worried that I had left windows open. So, I checked all the upstairs windows since it is about 60 degrees or so. Big difference since Monday, when I slept with the fan on.

Even though, it seemed highly unlikely that I would have heard car sounds from the street in the back room or birds chirping at 2 pm in October. I was befuddled.

Both of the sounds were coming from my left side. I kept turning to my left to see if there was a radio or some ghost. I saw my speaker. Then I began to hear music. I couldn’t make out the words that the singer was saying. A four second track played over and over again.

I was relieved that I was not hearing things but I was freaked out. I checked all of the open websites and could not find the source of the diverse sounds. I checked my control panel for programs running. Nothing.

I disconnected the Internet and took a nap.

Either my computer is trying to communicate with me, I have somehow downloaded someone’s idea of a practical joke or I am nuts.

Has anything that weird ever happened to you?

Entry for October 09, 2007

Gray Hair Changes Everything

When I found my first gray hair, I cried. I think that I might have fallen as well. I was really upset.

That was six years ago. Since then I have grown quite a collection of gray hairs. So many that my little sister takes great delight in announcing that I have gray hair each time she visits from Georgia.

So many, I guess that my mother asked me if I wanted her to pluck them. Of course, I told her now. But today, one of my workers asked me if I wanted him to pluck them out.

What gives? Is this some sort of Old Wives Tale? People should pluck your stray hairs for you? Someone tell me something.

I have embraced my gray hairs. Just as I embraced turning 35 and being single. Just as I embrace owning an older home with older home problems. And embrace l the suspicion that my neighbors still have me on “Gay Watch.” I really need more straight male friends to visit…..

I am getting old. So old that I mentally check my tv schedule, that is - whether or not I DVRd an upcoming show, before I commit to meetings.

Okay, I might not be that bad but I might just be….

I conduct what I call “ Suck-dar Watch.” This means that a show that is in my DVR schedule is on special watch for bad writing/acting and wasting precious memory in the
DVR. I schedule shows into the DVR and if they suck- I remove them. I removed Flash Gordon after the horrible Ascension:Hawk Men episode. I still shudder to think of it.

Painkiller Jane sucked. The tagline should have been “How Many Ways Can We Kill Jane While Wearing a White Tee.”

This summer, I began the Suck-dar Watch on Monk after the Mr Monk and the Bad Girlfriend episode. I eventually removed the show from the DVR. This season sucked.

Currently on Suck-dar Watch are the following shows

Stargate: Atlantis

Reaper – I give all new show four episodes.

Caveman – has 15 more minutes to prove interesting.

CSI: Crime Scene Investiagation – I removed this one at the end of the 2005 season. Io took a year off of watching it as punishment for the Sara and Gil romance. Yuck! I am giving it the standard 4 Suck-Dar watch episodes.

Criminal Minds – it actually really sucks. I watched it for Mandy Patakin. Looks like that it gonna suck more now especially since Shemar will not take his shirt off.

Life – so far so good. It might last

Ugly Betty – Just not sure about it. Is it really worth an hour in my DVR lineup?

Medium – the season hasn’t started for this one but it is on Suckdar watch because of last year’s season finale.

Family Guy – too much Stewie…..

Pushing Daisies - looks good!

Numb3rs – was beginning to suck last year.

Kitchen Nightmares – thought it would be more like the BBC show. I am not sure that I want to hear about feelings, communication issues and conflicts. I just want to see the kitchen get its act together.

Shows I removed last season

CSI: Miami – that much tragedy can not simply happen to one Horatio. His whole family is cursed even people he or his family members marry. His life sucked. And what are the odds a good Samaritan agreeing to pay millions of dollars for a justifiable beatdown of a potential wife-beater, latter being getting shot in the head and returning to work. Me thinks that he should find a new job. Bad Karma in Miami.

Gray hair is how Nature reminds us that we are going to die. I read that somewhere. Can’t remember where. With each gray hair, I don’t want to watch dumb TV shows.

Purse Autopsy

I haven’t posted in a few days because I started an on-line class and I installed Sims2 Pets. Having the Pets expansion is kinda ironic. My cats are driving me nuts with the cat hair, the hair balls, the cat-up, the cat temperament. All of a sudden my Kitty has become affectionate. Out of no where she wants to burst in on me in the bath. Wants to stand guard while I shower, even sit on my lap when I am on the commode. I have to lock her out.

I have found the on-line class to be utterly confusing. It is as if the instructor took a course that she taught five years ago and transported it to the Internet using the same resources. The other courses that I have taken on-line have been driven by discussions, supplemental reading sources and projects that were dynamic, contemporary and interesting. In this course we are using a 20 year old text, being asked to view movies that are at least 7 years old and comment on historical figures. Booo.

I do log-in in each night but the instructor has disappeared. I understand allowing the class to learn from each other but she has really not posted anything since day three of the course. We are in week four. I feel abandoned. Not too mention the syllabus -that is a hodgepodge of last year’s 16 week syllabus and a modified 10 week syllabus. She didn’t bother to check her dates. I want to drop the class on principle. It is a course designed to explore the concept of leadership. Maybe this is her teaching style. The instructor will appear when the student is ready.

Almost forgot to mention that I have finally started working out at the schools rec center. Yeah me. I had been waking up bright eyed at 5:33 am for two weeks. I decided that I should just get up and go to the gym. (Sadly, now i am waking up bright eyed at 5 am.)

With the new work-out goal, I have been getting to bed on time which means that I haven’t been playing much of my new Sims2 game. I can play for hours. I have been trying to stay away from the computer except to do classwork.

And that is why I haven’t read email or visited blogs.

I will try to catch up this week.

In the meantime, I stole this idea from another blog. Bad Amy Knits I heard about her from the gals at the yarn store .

This is my purse. It is one of my favorites for now. It has brass feet and a matching key fob. I like the way that it opens and how much I can cram into it. I like the sounds it makes.

As you can see I like to keep the contents of my purse in smaller pouches. I like red pouches because they are easier to find and I usually get red things for free. You can see my wallet. My makeup- aspirin- allergy kit. There is one of my ongoing knitting projects. Do you see the sexy animal print interior?

This is everything.

That is not a cigarette case. I keep business cards in it. As you can see, I get my little red pouches from attending conferences. One of my lip glosses must have fallen out of the makeup-allergy-aspirin kit bag. I keep all of my credit cards in their own special pouch so that they can be easily removed. Since I suffer from so many allergies, I keep a tissue pouch. It protects the tissues from the stuff that gets lost in my purse. I keep stamps in the tissue pouch.

In an autopsy, the medical examiner just doesn't open up the body and pull things out of it. She opens up the organs, too.

A close up view of the first 6 inches of a 48 inch project. The directions say that I should create a rectangle from the bias. That means begin with a triangle until the right edge is the correct length. It took some imagination. Remember I was a Sociology major not an engineer. I keep the balls in small plastic bags to keep the two yarns from tangling. It will be a cape when it is done. Follow the link to see the designer's example

I am using a red kid mohair and EROS 3250 Colorful. These items fell out of my makeup-allergy-aspirin kit. You can see the stamps. The Aleve. The lip gloss. The loratadine pills and the pataday drops (that don't last an entire day at all).

The tissue pouch that will serve as a wallet when I am downsizing. And the credit card wallet. I keep my JC Penney salon punch card in there and all of my gift cards.

So there it is my purse autopsy. Today was a clean day. I just changed purses this morning.