Trish's World

On Friday night we realized that the tub in the master bathroom has a crack on it. We figured this out because we were downstairs watching TV and noticed some weird wet spots on one of the drop ceiling tiles. I’m not sure if I mentioned here that we also recently noticed that the shower upstairs in the guest room is leaking somewhere and when it’s used it drips into the closet in the master bedroom. Luckily we have a third shower, so no worries, right?

WRONG. George tried to shower last night in the main floor shower, and there is no hot water getting to it and we can’t figure out why. Sooo, that leaves us with zero usable showers. I feel like a hobo right now. I am thinking I will wash my hair in the sink today and then just sort of wash up whore’s bath style. Should be awesome. We have a dude coming to look at our problems tomorrow night. Hopefully after that we will have at least one working shower, maybe 2. It’s getting pretty ripe around here.

The good news is that since we have to replace the tub & shower in the master bath, we decided to upgrade to a fancy Jacuzzi whirlpool tub!! It is supposed to be installed on Tuesday and I am pretty excited! We spent pretty much all day yesterday trying to figure out what we wanted to replace the current enclosure. We went back and forth a million times, but ended up choosing the whirlpool tub, & shower/tub walls that we both like. We also decided to ditch the shower doors we have and go back to a regular curtain, and while we were at it, change up our fixtures and all the accessories like the toilet paper holder, towel bars, etc. I can’t wait until it’s done @ I can soak in my whirlpool tub!!! Woot!

I have been reading quite a bit lately. I am working on the series of books that The Vampire Diaries TV show on the CW is based on. It’s an interesting story, but the writing is super lame. I have got to get off of these teen books. I am sticking with this one because I really like the show and I am interested in the back story of it, but if not for the show I would have ditched these long ago. Luckily they are a quick read – I am on the 4th of 5 books and have only been reading these about a week.

Next up, I am torn between starting the Percy Jackson books, or the Sookie Stackhouse True Blood books. The new Percy Jackson movie looks sweet, and I definitely want to see it. I’m just not sure if I want to read the book or see the movie first. As for Sookie Stackhouse, I tried to watch True Blood but couldn’t get past the first episode. Maybe I will enjoy the books more. I have a bunch of other stuff I want to read, too, so maybe I’ll go in another direction completely. Hard to say. I have a TON of Star Trek ebooks that I have been itching to read, so maybe I’ll give some of those a spin. Ok, actually I have every Star Trek novel ever written including all of the scripts from every episode of every series and also every movie. Oh, and all of the autobiographies of all of the actors too. So that could keep me busy for quite a long long time.

Sure wish I could take a shower.

Things have been super busy for me lately. Good thing I don’t have a pesky job to interfere with my swinging social life.

On Sunday we headed to Casa de Vargo in lovely Sparta for a VII reunion. It was so much fun, and I’m so so happy that everyone was able to make it. Even Matt’s mom & sister came from Toledo, which was just great! It was really really fun to hang out with everyone. We finally got to meet Tony’s girl, Karin, and she is awesome. Thumbs up big time. Everyone seems to be doing really well, and we had a blast. Here’s my favorite pic of the guys. It’s blurry from all the action, but I think it’s a great representation of these dudes. Also, more pics from the party are here.

While at the VII reunion, I was talking to Shawn about the Gallagher’s Beer Society, which I joined recently. He is sort of like my beer mentor. He has completed the GBS beer list 3 times and is working on number 4. There is a plaque on the wall at Gallagher’s with his picture on it for crap’s sake. The dude is an expert! He told me that he usually goes on Monday night because the bottles are discounted, so I told him I’d like to go too. I met him there the following night, and he attempted to show me the ropes of the GBS. It was really nice to hang with him and chat. He is such a nice guy. I’m sincerely hoping that Mike & I can get together with him soon. Maybe this next Monday night since I have many many more beers to drink before I can complete my task.

On Tuesday, I had lunch with my mom, then met up with my girlfriend Laura and the 2 of us went out to meet the Zombie Prom Date Knitters for coffee & knitting. We had a great time! Those chicks are so much fun. After knitting I hooked back up with my mom and we went grocery shopping. When I got home from all that I made dinner and also rice krispie treats for Mike’s friends at work. It was kind of a busy day considering that I have no job (besides being awesome).

Also, I’ve got some newly finished projects I want to show off. First, a headband that I whipped up last night from some leftover sock yarn. I made one of these a long time ago, but my hair was short & I didn’t like the way it looked. Now that my hair is longer, Laura suggested that I make another because she thought it would look great now that my hair is longer. She was right, I really like it. Keeps my ears warm and looks cute. I will definitely make more of these in some different colors. Next, a green sock I finished, still working on it’s mate. Last, a crocheted afghan that I’ve been working on all winter. Made from scraps, and a gift for The George. I gave it to him this morning, and I think he digs it.

I think that’s all for now. Today I am staying home &  doing chores. Scrubbing toilets = not that awesome. But definitely needs to be done. Word.

Here are a couple of recently finished projects. The first is a case for my Passport portable hard drive. I didn’t like tossing it into my bag with nothing protecting it, so I made this little sleeve. The second is a draft snake I made for the man cave. Since the door to the attic is there, a lot of cold air seeps through under the door, so I whipped up this draft dodger, which seems to be helping a little. It’s just a bunch of scraps that I crocheted together, and I stuffed it with scrap yarn, scrap fabric, and some dry beans to keep it in place. Kind of ugly, but useful.

I am not very good at being out of work. I feel like a big useless lump. I am keeping busy around the house by cleaning and doing chores, but it just isn;t the same. I am looking for work every day but haven’t seen too much that interests me AND I am qualified for. I have applied for a couple of things that sound really cool, but have yet to hear back from anyone, which is frustrating too. Uggh. I just don’t really know what to do with myself. I don’t like this feeling at all. Mike has been super-supportive, which is great. He keeps asking me what I would do if I didn;t need money and could do anything I wanted to do. The problem is I have no idea. I’m not sure I want to continue doing what I have done for the last decade, but if I don’t, that leaves me with no experience in anything else. I’m frustrated and unsure and losing confidence in myself. Oh, and I am also bored to tears, which doesn;t help either.

Mike & I decided to take a road trip to South Bend on Friday. He has been playing the Star Trek Online beta, and some cheesy fast food joint called Del Taco had some kind of code that he wanted on their cups. The nearest one is in South Bend, so we decided to go check it out and get the code. Del Taco is basically Taco Bell with a few minor differences. They do have a really cute Hamster for a mascot and for the kid’s meal toy he was the Nachop Ninja in a little ninja outfit. So cute!! I had to get one. Otherwise, Del Taco was uneventful.

We also went to the South Bend Chocolate Company’s Chocolate Cafe – a magical place filled with chocolate and sweets. They also have a gorilla gaurding the joint. See?

I ordered a hot cocoa and picked out a cute little Vanilla Bean Cupcake. The cupcake looked yum, but when I went to take a bite, it was rock hard! Eww, stale cupcake! I traded it in for a red velvet, and it was AMAZING. So good. Loved it.

We also hit a cool used book store where I found a Shakespeare’s Sister CD used for $3!!! I was stoked! I think that might have been the foirst CD I ever bought, and who knows what happened to it. Anyway, it’s cool. The other place we went was a really cool gaming store that had manana cards, Warhammer stuff, and all kinds of associated stuff. It was pretty neat. All in all, a really fun day! We capped it off with dinner at Red Robin.

Saturday was Mike’s 34th birthday! We headed up to GR and hung out with his family. We had a great time, and Mike had a stellar birthday.

I wanted to post a quick update on my DIY notebook that I’ve been using since the start of December. It is really great – it’s the perfect place for me to keep everything I have going on (which happens to be very little these days) together in one place. I am loving it so much.

Anyway, since I last posted pics, I’ve upgraded it a bit. I added a fabric book cover to hide the icky black pleather of the cover. I think it might be real leather even, but it’s all black, so eww….had to do something about that. I have also added a clear zipper pouch for all my fancy colored pens. I love colored inks, so I have all different colors going on in there. I also made new section dividers using these bright colored file folders I found at Target in the dollar section – 3 for $1!! I added some cute stickers and finally got a weekly claendar page figured out, so everything is working perfectly. Yay!! Here’s the pics:

You can click to see larger versions, and there are even more at my Flickr page.

Remember when I said that work was really stressing me out? Well the good news is that my job isn’t stressing me out anymore, but the bad news is that I don’t have one. I was laid off this morning. Which is really just a nicer way of saying that I got fired.

It wasn’t because of anything I did, it was just because the company is in such dire financial straits that they can’t afford to pay me anymore. And it wasn’t just me – several people were “laid off” today as well. I think the thing I am most sad about at this moment, to be completely truthful, is that I had to cancel our reservations in Traverse City for this weekend. We just really can’t spend the money on it at the moment, even though it breaks my heart.

I am in the process of filing an unemployment claim, and I have already applied for a couple of jobs, too. I’m scared and I have no idea how to do this.

So what’s new with me? Hmmmm, let’s see.

First, I have been taking my vitamins and doing my workouts and I am actually getting to bed at a reasonable time at night – which is awesome news. My workouts are getting steadily better and longer which is also amazing news. So things are progressing and I am starting to get more sleep! Which is even more amazing considering that work has been extremely stressful lately.

Mike & I took the cats to the vet last Friday because they needed their Distemper vaccine boosters. Nemo hates it when he is in the carrier, and he always rubs his nose on the metal bars until his nose is all puffy and sometimes even bleeding. He also got weighed, and he is a whopping 15 pounds. What a hefer! The vet gave us a few suggestions to get his weight down. Otherwise, both Nemo & Buffy are healthy and fine, and there is no danger of Distemper in their future either. I noticed 2 days ago that Nemo was sneezing. A lot. He sneezed all afternoon and evening and would have these fits of like 20 sneezes right in a row. The poor kid! I was really worried. He continued the next morning so I did some research online and found that excessive cat sneezing can mean there is a respiratory infection. So I called the vet and they asked me to bring him back in this morning. I was right, he has an upper respiratory infection and we have to give him antibiotics twice a day for 14 days. Yipee. But hopefully this will help and he will be feeling better soon.

My mom got me a pressure cooker for Christmas, and I tried it out a couple of times this week. I was nervous at first because I have heard horror stories about them, but it is actually awesome. On Sunday I made a delicious pot roast and it only took about an hour! It’s crazy how fast that thing cooks food. I also put frozen chicken breasts in it along with some sauce and chopped onion and mushrooms, and that took 30 minutes to be completely done, and was also delish. My mom also got me a couple of really cool cookbooks that I have been making good use of as well.

From Mike I got Star Trek The Original Series Season 1 on special edition Blu-Ray. HOLY COW. It looks AMAZING. They have redone all of the effects and cleaned up all of the film, and it is crazy how awesome it is. There is a little documentary where they explain how they did it, and they show side by side comparisons of the original footage and the redone footage. Just the clarity of the picture alone is great, but on top of that, the redone effects are incredible. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

As some of you may know, Mike’s birthday is next week. We decided to make a weekend trip to Traverse City, so we are leaving on Thursday next week after I get out of work. I am super excited to get away for a couple of days, and also to celebrate Mike’s birthday. It should be really fun, plus we got an amazing deal on the hotel room!

When my stepmom was here, she told me that I remind her of Punky Brewster. I think she was referring to my pajamas. I usually just look in the closet and grab the first PJ things I find that are clean and put them on. When she said that I was wearing my crazy knee high socks that I made, grey cotton capris, a baby blue care bear t-shirt, and a bright blue & hot pink plaid long sleeve flannel shirt. A few nights later, after my family left, Mike, George & I had plans to watch a movie. I put on my jammies, and then came downstairs. They both looked shocked because I was wearing hot pink legwarmers, a purple and black striped skirt, and a fleece top with a crazy print in insanely bright colors. They laughed and made jokes about how much my clothes clashed. Anyway, it really got me thinking. I think I am like Punky Brewster. My favorite knitting projects are always the ones I make with scrap yarn in a crazy assortment of colors. I searched my Flickr photos for “scraps” as a tag and I got this. Hmmm, kind of a lot. Plus, that’s just the items that are complete – I also have 2 scrap afghans, a pair of scrap socks and 2 scrap scarves on the needles right now, and I recently made a draft dodger for the Man Cave from scraps that I don’t have photos of yet. I think maybe Punky should be my new street name? The thing is I do love color, and one of the reasons I love to knit so much is because I love to put colors and textures together in interesting and unexpected ways. So yeah, I guess my stepmom was right – I am sort of like Punky Brewster. You have to admit – the kid had style. I love her whole outfit, right down to her pigtails and jaunty thumbs up.

Mike has been playing Little Big Planet on his PS3 and PSP for a few months. He really digs it, and he loves dressing his Sackboy (the game’s main character) up in different costumes and such. I happened upon a Sackboy knitting pattern several weeks ago, and I happened to have some yarn in my stash (from Stitches) that would work perfectly. I decided to give it a go, and I worked on it super stealthily when Mike wasn’t around. I’ll admit that it was pretty easy to keep it a secret since Mike works all evening, but still.

So here is the result – Mikey with his Sackboy:

I am pretty pleased with how the Sackboy turned out. He is actually really cute, and I am quite impressed with myself. Mikey likes him too. Since Sackboy loves to wear different costumes, I also gave Mikey a few changes of clothes for him. I got him a police officer’s outfit, a ninja set, and BEHOLD – Sackboy Pirate:

Anyway, I just wanted to share the photos of Sackboy – I was dying to blog about him while he was in progress but I had to keep him a secret!!

So I think I already mentioned that I have been having some sleep issues. When my stepmom was here, we were talking about vitamins, and I mentioned to her that I used to take prenatal vitamins every day for several years. She asked me why I was taking prenatals instead of just a multi-vitamin, and I told her that years ago I went to the doctor because I wa feeling tired and run down all the time. The NP reccommended I try taking a prenatal daily. I did, and the problem got much better. Ummm, DUH?? Why did I not put this all together before now?? I haven’t taken my prenatals in at least a year. I got out of the habit when I stopped taking my seizure meds, and just never quite got back into it again.

I have started taking them again as of yesterday. The only reason I waited was because I needed Mike to go to work on Monday and get me some! Now I have a few bottles and I am really thinking this is a step in the right direction. I have also committed to exercising at least 20 minutes every day. I think that this will also go a long way in helping me to get to sleep at night. I am not trying to lose weight at this point – I am so out of shape that I am just trying to do as much as I can and work up to a halfway decent routine. It’s so depressing because I used to go to the gym 3 or 4 times a week and I could rock the elliptical for 45 minutes easily!! I am ashamed to even report in public how long I was on the elliptical yesterday before I knew that my legs were going to be killing me today. But I am really trying and will continue to do so. I know I CAN do it. I just have to work myself up to it slowly, so that is what I’m doing. So far I am enjoying it, so that makes it much easier. I also asked Mike to set up the Wii Fit balance board for me because I want to try out some of the yoga poses. What I really miss is the gym! The indoor pool, indoor track, and racquetball. My mom keeps mentioning that she is going and I am dying with envy over here! The sauna! Hot tub! Stationary bikes!