Yarnaholic asked, and she received

Q's Pinwheel Sweater. She didn't want to have her face shown.

When the economy is bad...

it effects everyone, even dentists. More specifically, it effects their hygienists. On Monday, not that anyone ever likes Mondays, I will not be working. It seems that at my Monday practice, the dentist had only one patient the whole day, and I had only three. So he is seeing them, and he isn't having me come in. Now you understand that if I were the dentist, I would do the same thing. But right now I am the one getting screwed. I shouldn't feel bad though, a hygienist friend of mine worked for three different offices every week. She got laid off twice in the same week because things are so slow in the dental field. At least I have a job, and a big fat check from the ex for back child support to fall back on, although I would rather put that into retirement or breast reduction surgery or something.(Oh that's right, the Ex got a big fat inheritance and Child Support Enforcement was going to debit his inheritance, plus 20% as income that is supposed to go to me. So he paid me the principal of what he owes me, but not the interest. That way he can stay one step ahead of CSE about the 20% that is supposed to go to me.)
BTW, Q lost her second tooth in as many weeks. With the first one she brought it outside to show her friends and lost it, but the tooth fairy came anyway. The second one was hanging by a fiber so I just pulled it out of an almost hysterical Q. As soon as I told her to open her eyes and look at what I had in my fingers(the tooth) she stopped crying and started laughing.

Blessed Mabon

If your family tree does not fork, you might be...

One of Queens cockatiels. I'm contemplating getting another tiel. The lady 2 houses down from me has babies, and her female is on eggs again. This is the story. She bought brother and sister birds, and kept them in the same cage. Naturally, they laid eggs. Two of those inbred chicks laid eggs, and that is where these babies came from. Yep, redneck cockatiels them. But they are gorgeous. They are pearly pied, and if I can find a pic of that type of tiel I'll post it. She is giving me the baby, and heavens knows I have cages. It wouldn't be an investment. And I get all gushy over baby birds. If I don't take these chicks, I can take one from the clutch of eggs one they hatch and are ready to leave the parents. And what should I name such a bird. Oh, I'd have to come up with something really inbred sounding like Bubba-Mae or Ricky Bobby or Otis. Oh here is a pic I found of the pearly pieds, although most of tha markings are on their back and you can't see it in the pics well.

Life is good when you are a mouse here at the palace...

So I bought a humane trap today. The instructions said that I should put some peanut butter in there as bait, so I spread some on a cracker and put it in. Just in case it is a long wait, and the peanut butter gives the lil' guy cotton mouth, I put a jar lid with water in there too. O.k., I also put in some cotton balls so he will be comfortable. Hell, the mouse now has a better life than some humans do. He may never want to leave.
BTW, I updated my weight loss blog. Fifty eight pounds today!

Public service announcement from the Queen

I've gotten some hits lately that need to be addressed. If you come here looking for info on goat utters, you must be looking for information on goats whispering sweet nothings in your ear. If you want to learn about their anatomy, search for goat UDDERS. Also, I have nothing in my blog about Wayne Newton pecs (nor would I want to, yuck). I bet there are lots of sites that contain Wayne Newton PICS though. And lastly, You'd be surprised about how many hits I get for cake molds and jello molds. I'm sorry if your cake and jello are infected with all those microscopic fungi that grow in the form of multicellular filaments, called hyphae. You might want to look for MOULDS for your culinary treats.

I guess I should feel more guilty

So I took today off because I'm having a migraine. Usually when I get one I just go in because I can either have a headache at home, or one at work, so what is the diff? Today I just needed to take the day off. I have called off a total of 3 days in 2008. That is including when Q was sick. I usually have a major guilt trip when calling in sick because I inconvenience all the people I work with, plus all the people they have to reschedule. So after laying around for about 4 hours with a pillow over my head, I came down here to post, and now I will start going through paperwork and throwing out all the old stuff. I just can't seem to take a lazy day off like I should. Now on a regular day off, you usually can't get me off my butt...
BTW, remember the mouse incident? I never saw hide nor hair of the guy again so I figured he was just here on vacation and went home. But last night I saw mousy evidence under my sink. So now I truly must get a mouse trap. Am I being silly for wanting to get a humane one? Do they even sell those at a hardware store? I'll let you know. I'm not even going to tell Q. She will blab it to everyone and want to see it all the time.

Knitters Update

I'm not sure why I wait so long to brag about my woolly accomplishments. My needles have been quite busy lately. My cousins wife is going to have a baby. They moved up the due date by one month, so I am making a blankie out of Caron Simply Soft Thick and Quick. I've never used it before, it reminds me of the yarn girls put in their hair when we were kids.
An a woman I work with is so over the moon about being a first time grandma, I can't resist knitting for her too. Even though the Big Bad Baby Blankie (B4)is a great pattern, I'm a little tired of making it. So I'm making one Based on the B4 (B5?). I'm just making m ore of a checker board pattern instead of 4 big squares.


I'm bringing 2 neighbor girls to the dark side. I mean, I'm teaching them knitting. They are both 15, cousins who live together. So yesterday for M's 15th birthday I knit her an ear warmer out of a half used ball of black and silver wool. I literally had just enough to make it big enough to fit over her ears. I didn't take a pic, I gave it to her before I thought of it.
And finally, I finished that infernal Pinwheel Sweater for Q. She has always been embarrassed about me knitting in public and not liked wearing hand made things. So I was afraid she wouldn't wear it. Friday she came home from school and announced that A's mom made him a sweater and T's mom made her a sweater and she was going to wear hers too. And T's mom and A's mom and I should have a knitters club. So behold the Pinwheel Sweater.

What we've got here is... failure to communicate

I received a letter from Child Support Enforcement(CSE) for our state. The letter said they were going to go after Assholes employer to withhold $60 a week in child support. Woo-hoo 60 whole dollars! One little problem. The employer listed was the one he worked at about a year and a half ago before he moved out of the country. Naturally anyone who is trying to skip out on child support doesn't inform CSE of where they are going. After he left with out saying goodbye to Q, I e-mailed CSE and told them what happened. I never heard anything again. So I e-mailed again, nothing. So I snail mailed them too. I never heard anything. I rarely call CSE because you can wait on hold for 30 minutes, then hear a recording that due to heavy calls I am being disconnected and to e-mail them with the information. So, today after calling CSE no less than 8 times and getting disconnected I called another department. They deal with employers who are to withhold money for the state for child support. I figured at least I can talk to somebody. They pulled up my file and lo and behold...they never heard that he moved out of the country or was not employed at the previous company anymore. So lets see, they don't let you talk to anyone,and they want you to e-mail or send a letter with info. But the info never gets to anyone. So what the fuck am I supposed to do? The woman I did talk to did say that if he lives outside the country, and they have no address, there was almost no chance I will ever get any money. I wasn't holding out any great hope that I would. It really doesn't upset me as much as you would think. It does give me great satisfaction knowing that I have single handildy raised and supported my child. And in the long run, over the years, she will come to see that too. But that doesn't make me any less aggravated by the bureaucracy of CSE.

Update on the previous post

The efforts of my neighbor have only made the paint slightly lighter. And they haven't worked on it since it happened Monday, so I think they have either given up or don't care. I think I'm going to have to get some brick acid or graffiti remover. If that fails I will have to call a graffiti removal service. Somehow I don't think I will get any money out of the neighbors. This is just one of those things you just have to lump I guess.
UPDATE ON THE UPDATE:
They came over after 6pm and worked on the graffiti. They used a new chemical and it took a bit more off. They are going to try some new stuff tomorrow or so they said. Now I feel bad that I bad mouthed them. The boy was feeling shy around me so I asked him for some advice on the best time to do homework. He told me in no uncertain terms. "You come home, have a snack, do homework, then you can go out to play". Then he was himself again, he even told Q to listen to me when she ignored my command to come in for supper.
UPDATE ON THE UPDATE UPDATE
After riding bikes for an hour, Q was so tired and hungry that I told her just to go inside and start eating and I would put the bike away. After I put it away, I pressed the remote to close the garage door. When the light in the garage came on what did I see shadowed on the inside of the door but...neeuQ dna Q. Yes loyal subjects, he spray painted out names on the inside of the garage door too. I don't have the heart to narc on him again. Besides, the door will have to be replaced in a few years anyway, the garage door opener is almost 20 years old and the door is much older than that, and is starting to get holes in it. I don't know if it is worth telling his parents about it. Power spraying the inside of the door might just break it anyway.

Well this isn't good.

I've had a Labor Day weekend filled with children running through my house. I feel like AZ, feeding all the neighbor kids. I labored today, running errands, doing housework and some over due gardening while the kids rode their bikes up and down the street. I was watching the Cubs game and just about to pack it up and go to my parents house for a cook out when Q runs in the house with a can of spray paint. "J sprayed this on the house and driveway!" I went out to look at it and another neighbor was in my driveway telling me he stopped the boy and J was the only one spray painting, not Q or A. And just in case that was not enough proof, J wrote his own name and even had blue paint on his hands. He was caught completely red handed, or blue handed as it were. I took the can over to his parents house and told his mom. The dad came taring out of the house and demanded to see it. I was afraid he would not believe me or something. But the proof was quite evident. About 5 minutes later the dad and his cousin were working on the spots. You have to understand, the kid is a good boy. He made a mistake. But I knew he was going to get punished, and for that I didn't like to be the one who snitched on him. I even asked his sister a couple of hours later what happened, and she said he got spanked. Ouch, it hurts me just to be a part of the whole mess. But as my dad told me when I conveyed the story to him "If you didn't tell his parents now, what's going to happen when he is spray painting his school or some other building? He will get arrested then". So OK, there we go. Their efforts only made the marks a little lighter, but I'm sure they will take care of it. And hopefully the boy will get over his "pow pow" on the booty.