My Sweater My Self

Alright,
Sure, I'm in beautiful Missoula, Montana, and have already made a couple of thrifty scores. BUT, there is a higher priority here.

I am sick to death of going to the thrift store and finding a cute wool mitten that used to be a lovely wool sweater. STOP WASHING AND DRYING YOUR WOOL SWEATERS IN THE MACHINES! I mean, Jesus people, some poor sheep had to grow that wool, someone cut it off, washed it, spun it, and knitted it. Sure, most of that may happen on a machine these days, but still. Have some respect for the sheep at least. And if you want mittens, just buy mittens. The sweater only has 2 sleeves. You have 5 fingers. it won't work as a mitten or glove.

(OK, I'm at a hotel and watching crap TV. Celebrity Rehab makes me ashamed to be an American. But I can't turn it off.)

So, how do you wash a sweater?

First, buy a good sweater. All wool is best. If it's mixed wool and synthetics, it won't handwash as well because the fibres will want to separate and that will make the wool felt and pill. Also, acrylic is the spider web of Satan. It is crap. Just don't buy it. Get all wool. If you must get a blend, make it natural fibers. They will do better in the handwash.

Second, make sure it fits. If it doesn't fit. Take it back. Don't try to block it into a better fit. It won't work and it will look funny.

OK, now that you have the sweater we can get down to the real business.

Third: if the sweater is good, wool, and fits, now you lay it out flat and trace it.
Do not trace it with ball point pen or a marker. You'll get ink on the sweater either now or when you wash it. Trace it with pencil or tailor's chalk.
Trace onto either butcher paper or light colored fabric. If you can get it, a giant sheet of wax paper, several inches wider than the sweater including the sleeves. Ask the butcher. If you cant get that, an old sheet, towel, or piece of muslin will work nicely.
Make sure the sweater is flat on the flat fabric or paper. Then trace carefully.

Once it is traced, remove the sweater and make sure the outline is clear. If you traced onto fabric you can go over the line with a fabric pen. Make sure to that this is a permanent, non-bleeding, color-fast type pen.

Fourth: wear the sweater around. It's good to wear an undershirt and try not to sweat on it. But eventually it may need a wash. Probably once a year is plenty for most sweaters if you wear a t-shirt under them.

Fifth: Gather the following supplies:
* sweater. Just one at a time for starters.
* clean sink or basin or bucket or very large bowl. CLEAN. No soap, oil or other residue in it. A dishpan works well, but so will a canner, a popcorn bowl (unless it is a giant heavy sweater).
* mild soap or detergent. I really like Soapnuts for washing wool. If you don't have that, try a DROP of laundry detergent or use a tiny bit of non-scented shampoo. Do not use dish soap. It is very harsh. The theory here is to NOT strip the natural oils out of the wool. You want those in there. They keep the wool nice and make it a bit water and stain resistent. So NOT MUCH SOAP. You do not need suds. Suds are crap. They mean nothing for cleansing. They just look nice for advertisements.
* the tracing
* a few big bath towels (old ones that have been washed many times. NOT something that will bleed)

Sixth: Shake out the sweater. Pick off any obvious things (candy bits, mud, etc). If it is dusty or it's been a while since the sweater has been washed, vacuum it with the skinny nozzle of the vacuum (make sure the nozzle is clean and will not snag the sweater).

Seventh: Fill the basin/bowl/sink with cool water and the bit of soap/detergent. Hot water will mess with the oils so don't use it.

Eight: Wash the sweater. Put the sweater in and push it to the bottom. Squeeze it gently with your hands until the whole thing is wet. Then just let it float bak up, push it down, squeeze gently.
DO NOT rub or twist or get over excited with the washing.
Let it sit in there a while. Up to an hour is usually fine with gentle detergent. The basic things with washing clothes are mechanical manipulation (agitation, squeezing), soap/detergent, and time. In this case, it's best to increase time rather than intensify the agitation or increase the amount of detergent. After it has set a while, do a bit more of the squeezing.

Ninth: Rinse it. Drain the water and gently squeeze the water out of the sweater. GENTLY. Do not twist, wring, or anything like that. That will screw up the shape and start to felt the sweater. Fill the basin with more water (sweater is still in the basin). Squeeze a bit. Drain. Repeat this until it seems the sweater is all rinsed out. No soapy residue in the basin. I find that 3 rinses is usually good.

Tenth: Find the tracing you made of the sweater and lay it out.

Eleventh: Spread out a towel, put the sweater on it (relatively flat and spread out but not stretched) and roll up the towel with th sweater in it. You can step on this while it's rolled up to get the most water out.
Repeat this with all but one towel. Your sweater should be relatively dry now.

Twelfth: Use the tracing to block (lay out) the sweater into it's original shape and size.
If the tracing is fabric, put the last dry towel under it and you can just leave the sweater on it to dry. So be sure to do this in an area where the sweater can stay for a day or two (and not on wood which will get ruined by the dampness).
If you traced on paper, you will lay out the sweater, cover with the towel, then turn the whole thing over (you can do this like flipping a pie crust, not like a pancake). lay the tracing on top to double check that things didn't get misshapen in the process.

Leave the sweater out for a while. After a day, turn it over and put it on a dry towel. Check the shape again. If the sweater isn't pretty well dry, put a fan blowing on it. If it stays wet too long, it will mildew and that is gross.

Store your sweaters folded, NOT hung up. they will get stretched out if you hang them up. FOLD THEM. Put them on a shelf, and put some cedar blocks around them, or anti-bug sachets, bay leaves or whatever. Keep the bugs out. Do not store them in a sealed plastic box or bag. They need to breathe. When the temperature cools, you'll get condensation on the inside of the box or bag and your sweater will mildew. Also, any stank in the sweater will stew in a box or bag. If you have a cedar chest, put the sweaters in there, but don't let them directly touch the cedar. Put a sheet down first. The cedar oil can stain things so you should always wrapp things in a cedar chest anyway and refold and restore them now and then.

OK, done with sweater lecture. Now I will print the url to this post on cards and hand them out to stupid college students who run their sweaters through the dryer.

Also, this method works for wool socks and long johns, and what have you.

Keeping your sweaters nice is frugal, thrifty, and respectful.

Handknit Socks!!

Someone donated handknit socks to the Volunteers of America store! It makes me sad for whomever spent hours knitting them, but good for me.
I washed them (with soapnuts) because I don't want to catch sock cooties.

Here's a picture of them

















The color is inoffensive.

I do want to darn one little bit before I wear them. It looks like a toae segment may be separating from the rest of the sock in one stitch. I would feel super bad if they unraveled on the first wearing.

If it turns out they are bogus socks, I'm going to make killer sock monkeys.

Also, please people! STOP PUTTING YOUR WOOL SWEATERS IN THE FREAKING DRYER. I see so may lovely wool sweaters at thrift stores. Only now, they are mitten size and felted. Cripes. I should post how to wash a sweater. Maybe I'll do that.

Some Great Frugal/Eco Blog Entries Out There

This blog entry is just because I noticed that there are some good entries in my favority frugal/eco/simplicity blogs of late.

I'll link them so you can enjoy, rather than stealing their ideas which was my first thought:

Living in 100 square feet on The Good Human
This is about living in TINY homes and includes a couple of videos.
I've been fascinated with these particular tiny homes, Tumbleweed homes, for a while. I don't think I'll ever buy one because of the cost, but you never know. I will take design ideas from them.


My friend Laurie's shop, Flyright Gifts, is interesting in it's own right so please visit her blog. AND it's been featured on Apartment Therapy!! Another of my favorite sites because they focus on tiny apartments and homes and how they can be fabulous.

Why do I like the tiny? It's simple and it's frugal. You don't pay as much to heat/cool/clean/maintain/build a small home. AND it's simpler because you have less stuff than a big home can hold. You choose what to put in a small home (though some will always choose more than others) more carefully than what to put in a large home. My trailer is about 1000 square feet, but no basement, no attic, no extra storage. Thus, I had to choose fewer things to go in it than went in my house. The house had similar square footage on the main floor, but ALSO had a basement, attic, and garage to store more crap. Now it's in Pam's basement...sorry Pam.
The apartment is also small, though large for the price, and has 2 closets and a sort of storage area in the stairwell. So, less stuff (though more stuff than I need).

Anyway, here are a couple more interesting blog posts on frugality and simplicity:

SquawkFox, a blog about frugality, has an interesting call for input in this entry: What are your three worst financial decisions. Interesting how many people say "buying a house." There are also interesting comments about how the worst financial decision can be the best personal decision.

And I'm going to mention one blog that is no longer active, but it's the one that got me inspired to start blogging. It's Frugal for Life. The author brought herself out of deep debt and wrote about enjoying the freedom of debt free living. She's not adding to it anymore, but the posts are still up and she only retired it a few weeks ago so the ideas are fresh.

That's probably enough for now. I'll leave the "why the tanking economy doesn't scare me" stuff for another day.

Asteroids!

It was a meteor, not an asteroid, but like 3 of my friends will get the reference to Girls Will Be Girls, the best all drag film of all time.

I was driving to work this morning at some on godly hour like 5:30am and I happened to look to my left (rather than at the edges of the road where the @$#&%)# deer are always hiding.
And there it was. A meteor / shooting star! How cool is that?

It was just a line at first and then I totally saw it burn up when it hit the atmosphere. There was a tail like they show on a comet. Then it burned out.

I've never seen one do that.
Let's see if I can find a picture of how it looked:

This is it.
















BUT that is a comet, not a meteor or meteorite.

Now I have to look up the difference between a meteor and a meteorite.
One moment please....


OK, according to the always reliable Wikipedia, this is the deal:
A meteoroid is a small sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the solar system The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's (or another body's) atmosphere is a meteor, commonly called a "shooting star" or "falling star". On reaching the ground, a meteor is then called a meteorite.

So I saw a meteor which is the visible trail of a meteoroid and if I could find the lump of stuff that hit the ground, that would be the meteorite.

The 2 Fat Ladies Are Here! The 2 Fat Ladies Are Here!!

OK, not 2 actual fat ladies in person, the best best best cooking show EVER is "The Two Fat Ladies."

It's British and excellent. I ordered it off the Netflix (not an endorsement, just what I personally use) and it finally got here. There was quite a wait for it. You'd be surprised how hard it is to get obscure foreign shows.

Anyway, the show was great. They made traditional Brit fare...fatty, lumpy, doughy, greasy things. And the personalities, Clarissa Dickson-Wright and Jennifer Paterson, are wonderful. They ride around Brit-land in a motorcycle with sidecar and talk to the locals while makinging their food.

Here's a shot of the girls:




















I think if my sister and I ever get that cooking show done that we made (just one episode and it is stuck in post), we would be similar. Not so much in the fat...but in the weird women make sort of "off" food way. Not that either of us is underweight, but you know, we're more about the weird.

OK, I'm going to settle in and watch it by candlelight (not to be romantic, I'm just using candles in my bedroom more than my electric lamp (which sports a CFL) to see how I'll get by when I finally get to move off grid and not have electric lights...so a voluntary simplicity thing).

I'll blog as I watch...ready...

Already fabulous! They start out talking about shark fins and one thinks it will be bad because sharks are evil fish. And they pat their motorcycle when they pass by.

I was sick....

Sorry it's been so long. I was sick. And busy. When I wasn't being run off my feet, I was asleep.
Wednesday I was so tired, I had to pull off the road and sleep in the car for an hour after a meeting up in Sandpoint Idaho! Some sort of cold/flu thing that is going around.

I got over it in about 3 days due to hippie cold/flu care (no sugar, no dairy (which is actually standard for me), sinus rinsing 3 times a day, vitamins, lots and lots of herbal tea). Others have been sick a week or more so I'm pretty cocky about the hippie cold care practices.
I was really only gross sick on Tuesday, Weds and Thursday. Not bad. Our office assistant was knocked out for a full 7 days. She probably ate candy. Or was sicker than me. Whatever.

The sinus rinsing is gross, but so effective.
I recommend the neti pot to everyone. Mine looks like this one:















You put some salt (sea salt...not the iodized table salt), like a 1/2 teaspoon or so, in there and add hot (boiled for sanitary reasons though when I'm in a hurry I just use warm water) water. Let it cool to body temperature. Then you pour it up one nostril and it comes out the other. About half way through the pot of water, you switch nostrils.
The stainless steel pots are better because the outside of the pot is the same temperature as the water (with ceramic ones you end up sticking your finger in the water to check the temp..and introducing germs off your finger), and it doesn't release toxins like the plastic ones. Also, you want one large enough to do both nostrils unless you want to spend twice as long waiting for water too cool in the pot.

When I'm being good, I do this every morning. Since I used to have a pretty much permanent sinus infection, avoiding dairy and rinsing my sinuses are worth it to me. I can actually breathe through my nose now. After nearly 4 decades of being a mouth breather, in my late 30s I finally found out that people can breathe through their noses. I remember asking my gramma when I was about 4 what noses were for (mine only seemed to get me in trouble for sniffing or having snot come out of it unexpectedly). She told me people breathe through them and I was pretty sure she was lying to me. I decided we had noses because people would look funny without them. Later, I decided that was not it because if no one had noses, we would not think that looked funny, we wouldn't know any different. ( I was an odd child ).

Anyway, that is why I'm willing to forego dairy and run water through my sinuses like a hippie. I can now breathe. I've almost got my boss convinced to try the neti. He has terrible allergies and noticed that I no longer seem to suffer from mine (I also use a homeopathic anti-allergy item during the main pollen season...more on that some other time).

Here is a bit of research on the neti for those who are doubters:
http://www.webmd.com/allergies/neti-pots?print=true

And just to answer the questions I get in real life:
No, it is NOT like when you get water up your nose swimming. Once you get the salt/water mix right and the temperature neutral, you can't even feel the water in there.

Yes, sometimes gross things come out. But if you keep the sinuses clean then no gross things come out or they are too small to see.

Wierd things I've noticed:
If you're tense, the water won't flow through even if your sinuses are clear.
You have to blow your nose gently several times when you're done to dry out the sinuses a bit (but not totally dry them out!)
Sometimes, it seems to also rinse my eustacion tube and I get ear crusties. BUT my inner ears itch much less than they used to.

Enough with the grossness. I will now drink some herbal tea and go to sleep.

Cannin' and Jammin'

(Bad title! It's all I got)

I spent yesterday down on the rez canning.
I made spiced crab apples and some golden plum jam.
The apples are pretty. Only a few have the skins split so far. Probably more will go before I eat them. I have no idea how they taste and I'm supposed to wait a month or two before I try them.

I swore last year I'd never do the golden plums again....but the trees were LOADED to the point the branches were about to break. It took me about 20minutes to pick 5pounds or more (plenty for jammin'). I forced them through a cherry pitter this year rather than shaving the pulp off the pits. It wasted more pulp...and I think it killed the pitter. But it was faster.
The jam is GORGEOUS. Bright orange. And SOUR!!
I used it in the breakfast bars with double the usual apple sauce and only a little sweetener. They turned out delicious

I took a jar of each (along with some apples I picked on the rez too) to a friend. She handed ME a jar of golden plum preserves. Must have been the weekend for those plums. They are tiny...like large cherries. And definitely NOT freestone. I'm going to clean up some of the pits and plant them. The trees are clearly hardy. The freestone purple plums (huge and easy to pick and process) were devoid of fruit this year. As were some of the apple trees.
I'm definitely learning which trees are the hardiest by picking the free fruit around the rez. Those cherry trees are still doing well. I'm going to plant pits again this year. BUT I'm also going to mark the plantings better and maybe protect with rebar so the kids who mow the lawn won't kill them (but they probably will kill them).

The raspberries in the backyard, that have spread over from the neighbor's patch, did quite well again this summer. Enough to eat, but not to can or jam. One of these years. Especially if I move the landlord's junk pile which is blocking the spread of the berries and is in the best gardening spot in the yard. But the odds of me moving that junk pile is zero.

It is nice to know I'll have 2 kinds of jam to get me through to next summer (huckleberry and plum). I didn't want to buy fruit to can/jam this year so my variety is more limited. I still have some from last year to finish up.

I'll let you know how the spiced crab apples turn out. They look pretty and I left the spices in the jars so I'm thinking they will be a bit overly spiced.

Worms Have Their Own Radio Show!!

NPR's Science Friday is running a segment on worm composting today.

I'm quite pleased.

Today someone who got worms from me is passing on a batch to another person. We're like the Heifer International of worms (with Heifer the recipients of help agree to pass on some of the progeny of their livestock or other assistance).

I've given worms to three people. The person passing on today has passed on one or two other times. It's like a Vermi-Ponzi-scheme! How cool.

Anyway, the worms are lovely, though housed temporarily in my office in paperbags in a Walmart bag. At least the WalMart bag is being re-used...sigh. I don't condone WalMart but I'm not taking the worms out because they would get worm juice on the carpet. Worm juice is pee. Plants like it but I bet custodians don't.

My worms are doing quite well. They like squash so fall is a good season for them. I did notice that the person passing on these worms has citrus peels in there. I don't feed mine citrus as it can get toxic and my bin is pretty small. I really need to split it into two or get a larger one. Probably 2 is better so I can let one sit and finish twice a year while the other is still going. If you leave them for a month or so with no new food they eat all the remaining bits and go through the bedding so you have pure worm dirt (poop). Then you don't have to pick through it as much.

Anyway, just happy to be passing on worms today.

I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty...

But not witty or nice.

I washed my hair today. With the baking soda and a lemon juice rinse because I was at the trailer and out of apple cider vinegar. I'm at work an hour and a half early anyway so decided to deal with my hair here rather than at the apartment in Spokane. I don't like that shower as much and the lawn sprinklers are on (in the RAIN) every morning at 4:45-5:30. That's when I need to be in the shower. There is no water pressure. That makes me angry.

Anyway, so I wash my hair and comb it out but don't brush it because it is still wet. I go to work with a big mop of wettish hair that dries in to a big mop of dryish hair. I don't want to put it in the daily pony tail until it is dry AND brushed. So I'm walking around with a big pile of messy hair.

This must be what passes for "sexy" in Idaho. I had two co-workers (not the usual lecherous-y ones who don't even count...normalish ones) stop me and say I looked real good today. It ain't the outfit (sweatshirt from a thrift store, muddy jeans and shoes that have seen better days...all in shades of grey and brown). It ain't the makeup because I don't wear any.
Each then felt the need to get specific "Your hair is down. You look different." No kidding?
Then "You should wear your hair down more."
Um...now we've crossed into EEEWWWW.

I can't get a photo and it will be all deflated by the time I can so you'll just have to trust my not-usually-creepy coworkers that my hair looks fantastic.

Winnie the Poop

Warning: This entry is off-color.

So I'm walking around this morning while they are fixing my car down in Pullman, WA.
(By the way...they had to replace the part that I had had replaced in June in Iowa...someone will get a sternly worded note).
Anywho, I'm walking and killing time while I wait. I walk past a trailer court I used to live in once upon a time in my college days. I like the old style trailer parks. Before they were "manufactured homes" or whatever. Back when a trailer was a trailer.

Many of these trailers have been in the park since they were new in the 1950s or 1960s so they've been modified, settled into the swamp they sit on and what not. They've hardened into the landscape and I like them.
A nice old one is for sale for 4500$. It's aqua with white trim, original windows, a porch (added later and at least partly made of old pallets).
There was a sign in the window with a number so, having time to kill, I called it. I asked if it would be open today for a viewing and the guy said, "It should be unlocked from someone seeing it yesterday." I said, "I see it's 4500$." The guys says to me he says, "I've lowered the price to 350o$"

Anyway, I like the shape and the look.
Just cool. Actually, it looks like this:














But aqua with white trim instead of silver. But this is the exact shape, window/door arrangement and everything. The webpage said this is 1958 Spartan "Imperial Villa".

I test the porch for sturdiness (it is sturdy) and go for the door. It's a little jammed but opens (out). I figure the thing has probably settled a bit over the years hence the sticky door. Just inside the metal door, is a "screen" door. Clearly homemade featuring 1/4" hardware cloth rather than screen and possibly reusing the original cabinet type latch. I always appreciate a screen door so the neighbors cat/kid can't wander in.

The door leads into the spacious 6X8 living room. I could touch both side walls at once (but I do have freakishly long monkey arms). There are some built in shelves and it's all paneled. The kitchen is just aft of the living room...and TINY but functional with fridge, gas stove, double sink and a tiny bit of counter space. There is an area, maybe 4'6" or so long and nothing wide where you are probably supposed to put a table and chair or something in the kitchen.

Proceeding through the kitchen you pass through a sliding door (no wasted space for hinged doors!) into what was probably once advertised as a bedroom. It is, like everything else, about 6' wide. There is a slider on the "far" end of the room too. The entire room is barely long enough to stuff a twin mattress in. Not sure you could get a headboard in as well. There is a cupboard partway up that must extend into the kitchen. I did not explore that as an issue was arising. there were two windows One on each outside wall so you would have good ventilation.

Through the far slider and voila! You're in the bathroom and about 3 feet from the next slider. The bathroom had a tub along the outside wall (you are walking along one outside wall already, the same wall that had the main entry door in it). RIGHT next to the non-faucet end of the short tub is the toilet. I flushed it and it worked. Opposite the toilet, next to the faucet and of the tub is the sink/vanity and medicine cabinet. The issue that arose in the bedroom has now become an actual issue. I have to make a number 2. Soon. I start thinking. I'm already IN a bathroom. The guy is not coming to the trailer since he doesn't know I'm there.
...
Still thinking.

OK, must be done thinking now. I totally used the toilet. It looked clean. I had to sit a little sideways to keep my knees from hitting the vanity cupboard (it must not have been original to the trailer. The style and scale were off). About this time it occurs to me that I did not check for toilet paper. I have my bag with some work reports I was going to work on while they were fixing the car and there is usually a napkin from Subway or something in there.
...
looking
...
looking.
NO!!! Nothing but office paper, file folders, a plastic covered spiral bound report, a plastic reusable grocery sac (always have one...in case you stop at the store on the way to/from work), a bamboo spork (hmmm...no), a hair brush, comb, copies of court orders, a broken mechanical pencil, dust, lint....AAAARRRRGGG.

I look frantically around the tiny crapper and into the adjacent rooms (which I could totally reach into). NOTHING in plain sight. Not even a wash cloth or anything. I remember the vanity and open it. On the inside of the door is a roll on a holder and on the shelf is another roll. Disaster averted.
By now I'm laughing thinking about the video I posted a while back.
Here's a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q16Wk1zKRrE

Anyway, I pull my self together, use the sink to wash my hands (note that the toilet flush is effective), and proceed through the next sliding door.

I'm in the palatial master bedroom. This thing must be 6 feet wide! It's HUGE and by "HUGE" I mean minuscule. Larger than the other bedroom, but only because it is not dual purposed as a hallway. You could probably get an old double bed in here, but you'd be hard pressed to pull out the built in drawers along the end wall of the trailer under the window. The drawers are flanked by a pair of closets, with, of course, sliding doors (I forgot to mention another closet...it may have been in the first bedroom or the bathroom...how could I lose a closet in a trailer that small?)

Anyway, it's not a bad bedroom if you are used to the size of the trailer already and don't have any big-r-tall friends.

This room has yet another doorway in it so while it was not originally doubling as a hallway, it is now. This door goes back out the same wall we originally came in when we entered the trailer. There is an addition. This is a real door on hinges and swings "out" into the new room. You go down a couple of steps in to a tiny, but comparatively spacious room with a sliding window in one wall, a stackable washer/dryer built into a nook, some build in shelves, and a door leading outside into the yard. This door is at right angles to the original entrance door and facing it more or less.

You could actually have 2 private bedrooms if you entered each through an outside door and one of them used to be named "living room". Then you could dine in the tiny first bedroom and watch TV or whatever in the original master bedroom. You would not want a very large TV because anything over about 12" is going to feel like you're at the OMNI theater. You can't really get too far away from things.

Still, with the decent roofed porch and extra room that have been added, it's not a bad trailer. There is lots of storage for the size and a small storage shed outside. The trees in the yard have grown up enough to shade the roof and someone managed to shove an air conditioner in one of the tiny windows on the end with the trailer hitch. It's not bad for the price and lot rent (including water, sewer and garbage) is 235$ a month. If I were a student, I'd be all over it.

The trailer I had in the same lot back in the day is still there. It's bigger. Probably 8 feet wide. And not as cool. Angela stayed in it when she visited me for three weeks one balmy palouse summer (and by "balmy" I mean hotter than hades). It was a dump. The trailer for sale is a dump...but a livable dump. And it's a good trailer court as these things go. It's right across the street from the community garden area and only floods in the spring...most years it's only in the spring.

Running in Circles

I've had one of those weeks!
El Kid needs wound care every 8 hours so it's hard for me to get anything done! First thing...clean a wound. Right when I get home from work...again. Before bed .... again with the wound.
Some people would find structure in it. I find it interrupts my valuable ME-TIME. Is that selfish?

Oh well. he can't help it and he's doing really well with it all.

It's been similar at work. I have things that MUST be done because it's the end of the fiscal year for government types. So, all other projects stopped for a week to get budgets sorted out.
Then there were big issues with a budget so other budget work stopped to deal with crisis budget.
THEN there was a field call that was an emergency that only I am qualified to work on. So the crisis budget got set aside to deal with the field emergency. Field emergency done. Back to crisis budget, back to regular budget close outs.
And then, deadlines were missed.

Oh well. Nothing can be done about it now!
Good think I cook ahead and put stuff in the freezer. 2 days this week I took plastic containers out of the freezer and was not entirely sure what was in them. I'd get home and deal with the wound and then see what had thawed out (both were chili...different kinds). At least we had something decent to eat and plenty of it.

I didn't even have time to go to yoga this week or meditation. MUST get back on that next week. I'm starting to get even crankier than usual. That could be all the chili too. Lot of fiber. Is that too much info?

This weekend I have the radio show so that will be nice. We've got too many guests again, all cool. So I won't have much airtime but I had lots last time.

That's all for now. There wasn't really a point to the post today other than bitching. But, I'm still ahead of Pam and the flood blog and that's what's really important...winning.

No 'Poo Update: I took a break at work to wash my hair and it is all fluffy and wavy and pretty.