Red Haired Lady Crochets

I'm Back!

2009-11-01T23:00:00.007-05:00

Yep, I realize it's been 5 months since I've updated my blog. Wow! I actually didn't realize it had been that long until I went on here. Just want to let everyone know I'm still alive, and post an update on what's been going on with me (warning - this is a LONG post!).

The past few months have been really busy (and interesting). I (finally!) started a new job at the beginning of September. A real, permanent full time job with better pay and benefits! I'm working as an administrative assistant for a nonprofit organization that oversees and provides food and services to over 100 hunger centers and hot meal sites in the Cleveland area. It includes one hunger center in my suburb, which had been a great help to my husband and I during our employment struggles of the past year and a half.

So, it's not the best paying job, or the most exciting, but I am making a lot more than at the BOE (no more phone calls from irate voters either, ha, ha!), have a nice boss and coworkers, and a lot more flexibility with my schedule (no more last-minute, mandatory overtime!). It's also in a great location downtown - 5 minute walk to the bus stop (no more taking two busses every day either!), and close to restaurants and shopping (well, what little shopping we have downtown anyway). Mostly I'm just thankful to finally have a permanent job, and to be done with all the stress and frustration of job hunting. I was especially thankful after my first week there, when my boss had me send our rejection letters (!) to all of the applicants (over 50) who I beat out for the job!

On the down side, my husband is still laid off, and hasn't even gotten many interviews. He's been out of work for 7 months now, and is feeling pretty depressed about it. Fortunately Ohio has had a lot of unemployment pay extensions, so when his unemployment ran out in September, he was able to get an extension, and keep receiving benefits.

In other news, my daughter started 6th grade at a new school this fall. She was diagnosed with a math learning disability in 3rd grade, and we've been struggling with her previous Catholic school since then to get her the help she needed. She was being pulled out of class several times a week for tutoring, but was showing no progress in math, and too many of her regular teachers had little patience with her learning problems. Several of them completely disregarded her IEP, which allows her accomodations like extra time on tests. Her 4th grade teacher essentially told me that Bethany was lazy, and that she could do fine in school if she was more motivated. At the same meeting, the school gym teacher expressed her "concern" about Bethany's lack of interest in sports, and her difficulty in learning the rules of basketball. WTF??? I'm not athletic. I've never been athletic, and never will be. I admire people who are athletically talented, but I don't think the world is going to come to an end if a child can't play a sport! I think the emphasis on gym class should be the children getting exercise, and if they participate in class, that should be enough, and from what the gym teacher said, Bethany was participating, even if she didn't enjoy the class.

After 4th grade, things just really went downhill for Bethany. She had a terrible year in 5th grade, failing nearly all of her classes, despite her keeping up with her assignments and homework. Her teachers, unfortunately, did a lousy job keeping my husband and I informed about exactly how badly Bethany was doing in school. She hated going to school, and was getting increasingly anxious and frustrated. I also found out, belatedly, that Bethany had problems with a number of kids harrassing her and making fun of her (which her teacher never mentioned to us), and which she said her teacher did next to nothing to stop.

The school principal waited until several weeks after school ended to inform us that Bethany would have to repeat 5th grade unless we could get her private tutoring 4 days a week, several hours a day, and Bethany could "demonstrate competency in the 5th grade" material. Besides the fact that with my husband being laid off, and my working at the BOE for $10 an hour, that paying $200 or more a week for tutoring would have been impossible, I also felt it would do little to help Bethany, because I've felt for quite a while that she possibly has ADD and anxiety in addition to her learning problems.

After a lot of research and discussion, my husband and I decided to try to put Bethany in a small (110 kids from kindergarten to 8th grade) Catholic school here in the Cleveland area, for kids with learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, and mild autism, about a 20 minute drive from our house. It's a beautiful school, in a converted mansion that a wealthy Cleveland area family left to the Catholic diocese in the 1950's, to be turned into a school for learning disabled kids. It's on 5 acres of land, all wooded, with a lot of deer and wildlife. The school is only one of two of its kind in the Cleveland area, and draws kids from the entire seven county region. Some of the kids have an hour to a hour and a half commute to school every day. It's also very racially and economically diverse, considerably more so than Bethany's last Catholic school.

The school has an excellent track record for its kids going on to be successful in high school, and go to college, and quite a few of their graduates have gone on to graduate from Ivy League colleges. I even found out that Bethany's LD tutor at her previous school is a graduate of this school as well. I had read about the school in our local newspaper a few years ago, and it seemed like the right place for Bethany, but I figured we couldn't afford it, and I wanted to keep her in a school in our neighborhood. I contacted the principal of the new school, and she was absolutely wonderful from the time she first emailed me - so kind and understanding and helpful.

We went to visit the school, and I was really sold when I saw their beautiful art therapy room with clay, a pottery wheel, kiln, sewing machine, fabric, all kinds of drawing materials, and, the best part, knitting needles, crochet hooks, loom and yarn! Yarn! I asked the principal about it, and she said some of their autistic students like to knit in class, because it helps calm them down, and helps them pay attention. How awesome is that?! The principal and teachers truly made us feel welcome at the school, and thankfully, they were not only able to admit Bethany, but, even though we got Bethany enrolled late in the summer, enough financial aid to knock the tuition down from $10,500, to $3,500, the same tuition we would have paid for Bethany at her previous Catholic school. It's still a struggle to pay with my husband being out of work, but I am so grateful Bethany is going there now.

Bethany is in a small class of only 15 kids (only three girls including Bethany!) with two teachers, and they have the ability to pull the kids out into even smaller groups, even to teach kids individually. The kids can take classes at higher or lower grade levels, depending on their needs. Bethany is in 6th grade, but is taking 5th grade math. She's getting weekly art therapy and occupational therapy, because she struggles with handwriting. The 6th, 7th, and 8th graders also have a bi-weekly social skills class.

Bethany's only been there 3 months, but already it's been like a complete transformation. She wakes up every day eager to go to school. She does her homework without me reminding her, and without complaining. She's making a lot of friends, getting along well with all of the kids, participating in class, and keeping up with all of her assignments. She got her first quarter report card, and got A's and B's in every class. Her improvement in math has been nothing short of amazing. Her teachers are kind and caring, and I can tell they truly enjoy working with special needs kids. Everything about the school is very child centered, and much less strict than her previous Catholic school, yet they still hold the kids to high standards, and believe that all kids can be successful in school, despite their learning problems. I truly regret now that I didn't try to enroll Bethany there a few years ago.

My son Dominic, who started 1st grade this year, is still at Bethany's old Catholic school though. I don't care much for the school anymore, but the public schools in my suburb are for the most part lousy, and nearly all are in a voucher program through the state of Ohio (Ohio EdChoice), so I am able to receive a voucher to pay Dominic's full Catholic school tuition. I feel this is the best option for him right now. My husband and I are hoping eventually to move to another suburb close to Bethany's new school, that has very good public schools, and send Dominic to public school.

Hard for me to believe, but high school is only a few years off for Bethany, so I am already thinking about where I'll send her to high school. I don't know how well she would do in a large public high school, with her special needs, and having only been in small Catholic schools, and I don't want her to feel singled out and stupid being in a special education program within a regular school. It's going to be a tough decision when the time comes.

In addition to being busy with my new job and the kids being back in school, I've been busy with doctor's appointments for Bethany in regards to her school struggles. My husband and I took her to a developmental pediatrician at a local children's hospital here, and she after meeting with us individually, meeting with Bethany, and various testing and questionaires, the pediatrician diagnosed Bethany with an anxiety disorder and ADD. She gave us a referral to a psychologist at the same hospital, who specializes in anxiety in children, and also said she said she'd like to see how Bethany would do with a low dose of Prozac.

I personally would like to try counseling first, and see how Bethany does with that. She's already on several medications for asthma and allergies, and I'm reluctant to put her on something else too. I'm also concerned because there's been a lot of things in the news lately about how one of Bethany's asthma medications, Singulair, which she's been on since she was 5 1/2 or 6, Singulair, can cause psychological side effects in some people. The FDA just recently mandated a warning label for the medication, about side effects including depression, fear, and mood changes. I'm going to talk to the psychologist about whether I should stop giving it to Bethany. It has helped her asthma a great deal, but I won't keep giving it to her if it's at all responsible for her anxiety. My husband and I have an appointment for a parents-only consultation with the psychologist on November 21st. I just want to get Bethany the help she needs now while she's still young, so she won't have to struggle as an adult.

Well, I hope that wasn't too boring! I have been knitting (a lot!) over the past few months. I haven't bought any yarn in ages, and my only decent pair of knitting needles is a pair of size 8, circular bamboo needles (I've come to the conclusion that I hate metal needles, and that I'm not too fond of straight needles either), so the only things I've knitted are stash yarn projects, where I can use size 8 needles. I've been meaning to take pictures, and post on here, but my digital camera has been messing up lately. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post in the next week or so. Now that I've gotten the hang of knitting, I'm really enjoying it! I still like crocheting, but I'm glad to be able to do both crafts. Maybe one day I'll get around to learning how to sew too!

For anyone who's been patient enough to read through this whole long post, here's a picture of my kids in their Halloween costumes yesterday. Of course, as luck would have it, it was 60-70+ degrees for the past two weeks, windless, and sunny, through Friday, then Saturday ended up barely 50 degrees and cold (yes, I'm a wimp - 50 degrees is cold to me!), overcast, and windy. We took the kids trick or treating with my brother and sister in law, my sister, and the kids' cousins and had a great time. My daughter also had a sleepover with her best friend, her 11 year old cousin Rosie.

My brother and sister in law recently moved to an upper-class suburb, and wow, those folks out there sure were generous with the candy! A lot of people were giving out full-size candy bars, some 2 bars per kid! Sure beats when I was a kid, and was lucky to just get mini candy bars, and of course, there were always some folks who gave out stuff like apples, boxes of raisins, or (usually from the older people), bags of pennies, ha, ha!

So, here's my hippie girl and Harry Potter boy (who refused to wear his Harry Potter costume glasses for the picture) at my sister's house:

Thanks for reading!

Updates

2009-05-25T22:43:00.023-04:00

Wow, I was just looking at my blog and realized I hadn't updated it in nearly two months. I didn't realize it had been that long.

Well, where to start...

I'm still working at the Board of Elections. When I went back in March, they brought back me and 4 other temps with the plan of eventually hiring us to fill 5 open permanent positions they had. The 5 positions ended up being cut to 2, and then brought back up to 4. 4 positions and 5 temps interested in them = 1 person not being hired. Several weeks ago the positions were opened for any current temps to apply. They interviewed 9 people (all temps from different departments), including me. Last Thursday they announced who was hired, and well, I was the one person from my department who wasn't.

What's so frustrating is that the lady who's head of the department told me how happy she's been with my work, how the quality of my work is excellent, etc., etc., but they didn't choose me because I can't work a lot of overtime during election seasons (because of my kids and if my husband goes back to work on nights). Of the other 4 temps they did hire permanently, three are young, single, and childless, and the fourth has a teenage daughter in her last year of high school, so none of them have child care issues to worry about. Stupid me assumed my not being able to work a lot of overtime wasn't too much of a problem, since they brought me back as a temp this time, even though they had dozens of other temps to choose from, who could work a lot of overtime.

I'm still employed at least, probably through the end of the fall, maybe through the end of the year, but having that permanent position would have meant more money. Health insurance (which I desperately need since my husband's and kids' insurance runs out June 30th, and I haven't had medical insurance in over a year). Sick time. Vacation time. Holiday pay. When I wasn't the only temp in my area, it wasn't so bad. We (the temps) liked to commisserate about the lousy job market and our need for permanent employment. Now, being the only temp, I feel like the unpopular kid who didn't get invited to the big party of the year. It was really, really hard dragging myself into work on Friday knowing my best chance at permanent employment had been dashed.

I hate having to start all over from scratch now - fruitlessly searching for jobs, applying and hoping for interviews, going through interviews, hoping to be hired, and being disappointed all over again when I'm not. I'm truly burned out on it. If my husband weren't still out of work, I wouldn't feel so overwhelmed, but his being out of work just compounds my stress.

About the only good news we've gotten lately is that our landlord, who has amassed quite a collection of rental properties, and who is looking to add more, asked my husband today (knowing our situation and given my husband's maintenance skills) if he would be interested in coming to work for him as a property manager, handling repairs on his properties, working with city inspectors and the Section 8 program (for his tenants that get assistance), etc. It wouldn't pay as much as my husband was making at his last job, but it would relieve a lot of stress financially, while my husband's waiting to when/if he'll get called back to work at his old job.

Last Friday, my 11 year old niece, Rosie, slept over on Friday and Saturday night. On Friday night, we ate at Cici's Pizza (if you've never been to one, it's a good, cheap alternative to fast-food restaurants). Saturday turned out to be rainy and chilly most of the day, but the kids talked my husband and I into taking them to the playground. There's a fantastic playground here next to a Jewish community center, all set up to look like a miniature town, with a pretend bank, fire station, school, houses, etc. It was built by volunteers and with donations, as a public playground for both disabled and non-disabled kids. The kids had a lot of fun, despite the rain. Here's some pictures:

After the playground, we went to the library and rented some DVD's. The girls and I watched "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl", about a 10 year old girl growing up during the Depression. I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be a pretty good movie. Christina, I think Piper would really like that movie.

In fiber-related news, after two and a half years of drooling over knitting patterns, admiring gorgeous projects on crafty blogs (ahem, Bezzie and Christina!), I decided to sit down, break out my knitting needles and some books, and learn how to knit. After struggling mightly with casting on (long-tail cast on), knit stitches, purl stitches, and binding off, I finally got the hang of it, and have now been knitting for 3 weeks! Yep, it's true! I even have a finished knitting project to show!

Ta da! It's a knitted kerchief with a crocheted edging, for Rosie, who asked me last weekend if I could knit or crochet her something (and she's such a sweet kid, how could I say no?).

I got the pattern from a library book, "Find Your Style and Knit it Too". I had several pairs of knitting needles I had collected over the past 2 years, during previous unsucessful attempts to learn how to knit, but my Dominic, having decided that knitting needles make good pretend pirate swords, lost or broke nearly all of them, except for a size 8, 16 inch bamboo circular needle, and a couple of aluminum straight needles (which I despise - I have the hardest time keeping the stitches on them). I wanted to knit something besides swatches, and having little extra money for new needles or yarn, I decided on this kerchief, which was perfect to make on the circular needles.

This is actually the second one I've made. The first was in some stash Cotton-Ease, and I ripped it out and restarted it literally at least 15 times. I kept messing up the yarn overs, purling when I was supposed to knit, and knitting when I was supposed to purl. I finally finished it after several days, but it had a lot of mistakes, and I just wasn't happy about giving something with a bunch of mistakes away. Yesterday afternoon, I started on this one, in some stash Sugar N' Cream (Pinky Stripes), and finished it this morning. I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

I have a stack of knitting books from the library sitting on my kitchen table now, tempting me with all their patterns. I've come to the conclusion that knitting is considerably slower than crocheting, that it's much more complicated, and it's way harder to fix mistakes, but so far, I really like it! For my next project, I'm hoping to knit this baby blanket (a big impetus for me finally learning how to knit!) for my husband's best friend and his wife, who are expecting their first child (a boy) in August).

In non-knitting related news, I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day. My husband and kids and I went to my oldest brother's house for a cookout. My brother's wife is Arabic (Palestinian) and a wonderful cook. Her aunt brought over a whole lamb for the cookout, and we had chicken kabobs, lamb kabobs, the most delicious hamburgers (from the Arabic meat shop - they had garlic, onions, and spices ground right in), and tons of side dishes and desserts. The kids had fun playing with all of their cousins, and of course, I was happy to see my little 16 month old niece, Jenna. Isn't she just the cutest little thing?!Of course, now that I know how to knit, Jenna is going to be totally spoiled with all kinds of cute, girly, hand-knitted gifts!

Well, off to bed. Holiday Mondays always go by too quick!

Feeling Better!

2009-03-31T22:08:00.024-04:00

Well, after a lousy past week, I'm finally feeling better!

I started back to work at the BOE yesterday. I was glad to have a job to go back to, but still feeling kind of depressed, thinking that I couldn't do any better than a $10 an hour temp job, even with all my education and work experience. I felt a lot better when I found out that the BOE might be hiring me and the other 4 temps they called back, permanently! They transferred 3 employees to another department, another employee retired, and one either quit or got fired - I'm not sure with. The head of the department said they have 5 openings now, and that's why they hired back just 5 temps.

My self esteem had taken a big wallop after I lost my pre-BOE job. But, after hearing the head of the department and another supervisor say they chose us 5 temps to come back because of how well we did on the assessment test, our quality of work when we worked for the BOE last year, and because they felt we would do the best at the job, I felt pretty good.

We're getting our own desks (instead of the long tables we sat at as temps last year), phone extensions and email addresses, so that looks promising. Geez, I know that's pretty pitiful that I'm getting excited about having a desk, after having my own office at my pre-BOE job. Yes, I had my own office, but it was only because my department only had 4 employees, including our boss, and there were 4 offices, so we each got one. If there had been more employees, most of us would have been stuck in cubicles. Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I do get hired permanently, because I'm burned out on job hunting, and it would be a huge relief to finally have medical insurance and vacation time again, not to mention better pay.

I feel like maybe my luck is turning around, because a lot of good things have happened to me since Friday. I had been worried sick the past week over my gas and electric bills, which living here in freezing Cleveland, where it's cold 6-7 months of the year, had become really unmanageable. I was able to get help paying them from a local agency on Friday. They not only gave me money towards each bill, but put me on a percentage of income payment plan, which cut my monthly payments in half.

I was worried about having enough money for bus fare to get to work all week, but then I got my state income tax refund yesterday, which my husband and I had been waiting on for well over a month. The majority of it got taken by the Ohio Department of Transportation for this minor accident my husband had two years ago (and no, they still haven't fixed the fence he hit, which they are charging us for). I was waiting for the balance of the refund to be sent to me, and wasn't expecting it for another week, but luckily it came sooner.

Today after work on my way to the bus stop downtown, I ran into an old friend of mine, who I used to ride the bus with everyday, but lost touch with, and hadn't seen in a year. That really made my day!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that since Friday, I've had 4 sales in my Etsy shop! The extra money came right in time, because my husband needed some money for gas to get the kids to and from school. I'm hoping the rest of the week will continue to go as well!

I also have a few crochet projects to show (please ignore the odd photo placement and the messed up line spacing at the end of this post - Blogger wouldn't cooperate for me today). First is a sweater for my "dog niece", my sister Shauna's dog, Autumn. She had asked me to crochet a sweater for Autumn. We went to Walmart, and she bought some Simply Soft Eco yarn in green and off-white for the sweater. I'm using a pattern from Crochet Today. She's really happy with it so far. I'm nearly done, but ran out of green yarn, so I'll finish the sweater when I have a chance to go back to Walmart, and get another skein.

Next is a pillow for my mom for her birthday in February. She likes birds, and her favorite colors are blue and green, so when I saw this ”Bird on Branch” pattern, I knew it would be perfect for her. Next is a hat and a market bag that I made for my Etsy shop.

I used some leftover Red Heart Fiesta from my mom's pillow for the hat. The bag is one of the items that sold in my Etsy shop. It's made with Lily Sugar N' Cream in pink camo and olive green. The suburb I live in has a farmer's market on Friday evenings during the summer and early fall, and I'm debating making some more of that bag, and trying to sell them at the market. They're always looking for more vendors (some sell things other than produce), and the market attracts a pretty large crowd. I wonder if it would sell well?

That's about it. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that I get hired permanently at the BOE soon.

When it Rains It Pours

2009-03-25T10:38:00.003-04:00

Yes, I realize I haven't updated my blog in over a month. It's not that I haven't been crocheting anything - I have made a few things. It's just that I know most of the posts I've done over the past 6 months have been negative, and I didn't want my blog to only be about negative stuff that happens to me. I was waiting to post until I had something good to report. Well, unfortunately, the past few months have not been good at all, and March has been especially bad.

I've had a total of one, yes, one job interview since last November. It was for a secretarial position with my college alma mater. I asked one of the ladies I interviewed with when they plan on making a hiring decision, and she said they want to fill the position quickly, so the person they select will be starting within 2-4 weeks. Two to four week is "quickly"??? Why do colleges and government agencies have to move so incredibly slow with their hiring? I'm trying not to get my hopes up about that job though, because not much of anything has gone well for me lately.

After fighting with the unemployment bureau since the middle of December, I finally had my appeal hearing yesterday. It lasted all of 10 minutes. Basically the judge told me since my base period employment was with a church, and churches, under Ohio law, don't have to pay into the state unemployment fund, I am not eligible for unemployment. I asked why the unemployment bureau's website says that employment with a nonprofit or government agency is considered "covered" employment, even though they don't pay into the unemployment fund, the judge told me that does not include churches. Church employees simply can't get unemployment pay. I was so angry and upset over that. Just because an organization doesn't HAVE to pay into the unemployment fund, doesn't mean they SHOULDN'T. And in my opinion, a church of all places should care enough about their employees to want them to be able to collect unemployment if they are laid off. Oh well.

On top of feeling miserable and depressed all day yesterday because of that, my husband got laid off last night. Yep. This was my worst nightmare - both of us being unemployed at the same time. His company has had three rounds of layoffs since November, and made the remaining employees take several unpaid furloughs. They laid off 14 more people last night, and my husband, having the least amount of seniority of the employees in his department, was one of them. He'll get two weeks of severance pay, his week of vacation paid out and then unemployment.

I can't even begin to describe how frightening this is, to have bills piling up, being crunched just to afford basic living expenses like food and utilities, and then to have my husband lose his job on top of it. As soon as his severance pay runs out, I'm going to apply for food stamps. I feel ashamed having to do that, but it doesn't look like I have many other options. The other big problem is what we're going to do when his medical insurance runs out on June 30th. I can probably get Medicaid for the kids, but now my husband won't have medical insurance either (I haven't had insurance since I lost my church job almost a year ago), and with him being diabetic and on several medications, that really worries me.

I haven't even had a single sale in my Etsy shop, other than a hat that one of my husband's nieces bought. I recently joined a few Etsy groups - Etsy Hookers (www.etsyhookers.ning.com) and the Etsy Cleveland Street Team (www.clevelandhandmade.com) - sorry, couldn't get the one-word links to work. I've been trying to promote my Etsy shop through both, but still haven't gotten any sales. I'm totally discouraged. I also created a website for my husband's DJ services about a month ago (through Microsoft Small Business - you can set up a website for free for the first year and only $14.95 for each year after that), and have been advertising on Craig's List, but he hasn't gotten any jobs yet, either.

About the only good that's happened lately is I got a letter from the Board of Elections saying they are hiring for temporary positions again, and are inviting temps who worked for them in 2008 to reapply. A lot of things about the BOE rubbed me the wrong way, and I'd prefer not to go back there, but I don't have much of a choice at this point. This year though, they're making everyone who applies take an assessment on their computer system, before being hired. I have no idea why, because when I was hired last year, not only did I not have to take any kind of assessment, I didn't even have an interview! I know how to use their computer system, but I don't have as much experience with it as many of the other temps, who had worked there off and on for several years, and that worries me.

If I don't get the BOE job, we'll really be in a mess, because I have no other job prospects lined up right now. I've been looking for jobs, but here in Cleveland, there's so few to choose from, and among the ones I've applied for, I haven't been getting interviews (the college job an exception). There was a job fair here recently, and 7,500 people showed up to apply for 1,500 mostly minimum wage to $10 an hour jobs. It was so crowded, the police had to turn more than half of the people away. I had wanted to go, but it was in a suburb I couldn't reach by bus from where I live. I don't feel so bad now, because I'd probably have been lucky to even get in the door.

Well, I have a few crochet projects photos to post - stash yarn projects. I'll post those later today, or tomorrow.

My Etsy Shop!

2009-02-04T23:56:00.011-05:00

Well, after much hard work, I finally got my Etsy shop up and running! Please come by and take a look!

I owe many thanks to Naida of Crochet Mama's Blog, who made the too-cute banner for my shop. Thank you so much, Naida!

Other than that, not much has been going on here. My sister and brother in law invited me and my husband and kids over for dinner last weekend, for the kids' birthdays. We had stuffed shells (mmmm!), garlic bread, and an ice cream cake. My husband and brother in law also went on a date. No, not really, ha, ha! They both wanted to see this vampire/werewolf movie (I can't even remember the name of it), and neither my sister or I were interested in it, so my brother in law suggested the two of them go together before dinner. I didn't mind. I like horror movies, but I just can't get into the vampire and werewolf ones. My sister and the kids and I stayed at her house and made plans for a surprise for her husband for their one year wedding anniversary, which is coming up in May.

I'm also still looking for another job, without much luck. I have mixed feelings about going back to work though. Financially, I need to go back to work, but when I do, I'm going to miss being home with my kids in the afternoons after school. We have a lot more time for homework and school projects, and I don't feel so chronically crunched for time anymore. But, I don't have the luxury of staying home much longer, so hopefully another job will turn up for me soon, or I'll at least get approved for the unemployment pay. I'm expecting to hear something from the unemployment office next. God willing, it'll be good news.

About the only other good thing about being out of work right now is not having to trudge outside into the snow every morning. This has a been a particularly bad winter here in Cleveland. We had almost 41 inches of snow in January alone, and another 12 inches just in the past few days, and the kids have had two snow days from school in January alone. This is the second snowiest winter we've had since 1978. So, what happened to global warming??!!

Happy (Belated) 11th Birthday Bethany!

2009-02-01T23:48:00.014-05:00

January 29th was my daughter's 11th birthday. I meant to post something then, but I've been sick for the past week with a nasty cold. I'm finally starting to feel better now. If there's anything in my life that makes me feel old, knowing that I'm now officially the mom of a preteen (yes, Bethany likes to inform me that she's a preteen now) is it, ha, ha! Only two more years until she's officially a teenager - yikes! How can it be that dating, driving, and high school are only a few years away??? Gulp!

It really doesn't feel like it was that long ago that Bethany was this little:
Now I have this almost as tall as me, going through puberty, becoming concerned about clothes, and hairstyles, talking about what's cool and what isn't from a 5th graders' perspective (apparently the kids in her class spend a lot of time discussing that), wanting a cell phone, and looking forward to be old enough to babysit, preteen.
But I also have a smart, funny, creative, sweet, pretty girl, and I'm proud to be her mom. She made me especially proud the other day when she told me that even though her little brother (Dominic) annoys her sometimes, that she still loves him. Awww!

Although the 29th marked a happy occasion in my life, it also marked a sad one. My dad passed away 4 years ago this month. His funeral fell on Bethany's 7th birthday. I thought it would be fitting to post this:
This is me (a much thinner me - I actually weighed less 9 months pregnant with Bethany than I do now -sigh...) and my dad at my older sister Desiree's wedding in 1997. I was 5 months pregnant with Bethany in this photo. I still miss my dad a lot, but I'm thankful for the time I had with him, and I take comfort in knowing that he's no longer sick or in pain.

I also have something wonderful to remember my dad by - my black and white kitty, Stormy (AKA "Mitten" because of her little white mitten paws). I was going through a really rough period in my life in the winter of 2001, personally, financially, and health wise. My colon became infected and ruptured unexpectedly, requring me to have emergency surgery to remove a foot and a half of my colon. I spent a week in an ICU, and came home with a colostomy. My other black and white kitty at the time, Sasha, who I had for 6 years, got lost right before I went to the hospital. The local animal shelter found him a few weeks later, but he died at the shelter the next morning, before I had a chance to come pick him up. I was heartbroken, and it was a lot to deal with so soon after my surgery.

A few days later, my dad and brother went to the drugstore, and my dad saw a tiny black and white cat wandering around in the parking lot, freezing, and trying to get into the store - my Stormy. My brother grabbed her, and they brought her home for me, and it did a lot to cheer me up. I still have her now, 7 years later, and she holds special meaning to me, since my dad found her. Happy belated birthday, Bethany! And rest in peace, Dad.

Happy 6th Birthday Dominic!

2009-01-20T09:42:00.014-05:00

Yep, today is my son's 6th birthday!

Lesa, I copied the "cake" you had on your blog! : )

It's hard to believe my little boy is 6 already. It went by so fast! It doesn't seem like that long ago that he was this little:

But now he's this big:

He even lost his first tooth last week! One minute he wants to do every thing by himself - getting mad if I try to help him zip his coat, or put on a DVD for him to watch (he's better at operating the DVD player than I am, ha, ha!), and then the next minute he'll run up to me, throw his arms around me, and tell me "I haven't had any hugs today!" or "I haven't had any kisses today!". I'm not looking forward to the age when he'll get embarrassed if I hug or kiss him. Happy birthday to my sweet little boy!

I realize I haven't been updating my blog much lately. I've been so preoccupied with my job situation lately that it's been hard concentrating on anything else. As you probably already surmised, I was laid off from the BOE again. They laid off all of the temps on Christmas Eve, but never bothered to notify anyone. Yep. I didn't work on Christmas Eve because of the weather, and most of the temps left early that day. From what I heard from another temp, one of the supervisors said late in the day (after most everyone had gone home) that Christmas Eve "might" be our last day.

We weren't scheduled to go back to work until the 29th. I came down with a horrific case of the flu two days before that. I hadn't been that sick with the flu in years. I barely made it out of bed to go to work on the 29th, but dragged myself into work anyway (as did most of the temps), only to find that all the temps were indeed laid off on Christmas Eve. No one got a call saying they were laid off, and the supervisors were shocked that so many people showed up to work. What did they expect?! The supervisors were trying to find work for the day for people who showed up, but I felt so sick and apparently looked so bad that the head of the department took one look at me and sent me home.

I had applied for unemployment pay after my first layoff in mid-December, and got the determination on Christmas Eve. I was turned down, because according to the unemployment office, I didn't have at least 20 weeks of "covered" employment or earned at least $206 a week before taxes during my employment. I earned more than $206 a week with the BOE, but was only there about 15 or 16 weeks.Upon looking into the unemployment law though, I realized that they were looking at any employment I had during what they consider my "base period", which is from 7/1/07-6/30/08. I was employed at my pre-BOE job during that time period. That employer was a nonprofit (church), which don't pay into the state unemployment fund, so the unemployment office told me that employment would most likely not count.

However, I found this on the unemployment bureau's website:

What is covered employment? Under Ohio law, most employers are required to pay contributions for unemployment insurance. Work for such an employer is "covered" employment. Work for a nonprofit or government agency is "covered" employment, even though the employer does not pay regular contributions, but instead reimburses the cost of unemployment benefits paid to its former workers. In that case, my employment with the church qualifies as "covered employment" for the purposes of receiving unemployment pay. I filed an appeal that day (stating that I did indeed have at least 20 weeks of covered employment, with all of the necessary information), and just received a new determination today.

So, in that case, my employment with the church IS covered employment! I filed an appeal on Christmas Eve, and was told it would take 21 days for a decision. I recieved the decision today, and well, I was still refused unemployment benefits, for the same reason as before! I'm so angry I could scream! I've been out of work nearly a month with no pay. Prior to that, I hadn't had a full paycheck in over a month, between my first layoff, and the BOE cutting the temps' hours after the November 4th election.

I filed a second appeal today, which will go to the Ohio Unemployment Compensation Review Commission, who will grant me a hearing on my appeal. In the meantime though, I can't afford to wait another three weeks to a month to see what will happen with my second appeal. I feel just sick over this. I've been applying and applying for jobs and haven't had a single interview in months. A friend of mine - a temp from the BOE, who recently found a permanent job, and who has HR experience, revamped my resume for me. Maybe that will help, but I'm not very hopeful, given all the bad luck and disappointments I've had over the past year with job hunting.

In other news, my husband's company just laid off 1,300 people across Ohio and I think Pennsylvania. This is the second round of layoffs they've had in a month. Fortunately they haven't laid off anyone from my husband's department (maintenance) yet, but he's worried that it might still be coming, and with him having the least seniority of anyone in the department, that wouldn't bode well for him. I'm praying they don't lay him off, because we'd be just absolutely screwed financially.

I have finished some crochet projects lately, and I'll post them in the next day or so. I've been working on some things for my Etsy shop. I set one up, but haven't put anything up for sale yet. I need to get a foam mannequin head to display hats, and some kind of banner for my Etsy shop (I don't have the software to make one). Those will have to wait a while too.

Wordless Wednesday - Cat Bed? Who Needs One?!

2009-01-07T12:24:00.003-05:00

Belated Merry Christmas

2008-12-28T00:44:00.022-05:00

I hope all my blog readers and fellow crafters had a good Christmas! Mine was OK. To be honest, my job situation has had me pretty distracted lately, and really put a damper on Christmas for me. I went back to work about two weeks ago. The first week back, there was a big water main break downtown a few blocks from the BOE, and the BOE had no water service, so we ended up being sent home at 9:30 in the morning. We had to work on Saturday to make up the time, but Saturday was only a partial day, so between that and the time I missed from work when I took the Census test, I was short a few hours for the week.

This week I stayed home on Monday and Wednesday because the weather was so bad. I've lived in the Cleveland area my whole life, so I've dealt with some pretty nasty weather conditions traveling to and from work. I can deal with snow and cold, but after falling on a patch of ice downtown last year, and breaking my right wrist, I'm paranoid when it comes to ice. Now that I have no medical insurance, the possibility of breaking something else really worries me more than it would normally.

We had freezing rain Sunday night, and by Monday morning, the roads and sidewalks were completely ice covered. My husband had an awful time getting home from work, and said the sidewalks looked even worse than the streets, and he doubted I'd be able to make it to the bus stop OK. A lot of the ice had melted by Tuesday, so I went to work, and then we got hit with even more freezing rain on Tuesday night. When I looked outside on Wednesday, the sidewalks just looked rainy, and not icy, so I got dressed, left the house, and didn't even make it halfway down the street without nearly falling a few times, because everything was completely ice covered. I couldn't even walk in the street, because the street wasn't salted. Things were so bad, many freeways were even shut down overnight, because of the high number of car accidents.

The suburb I live in used to be pretty good about getting the streets, including the side streets salted, but this year they really seem to be lax. I haven't seen a single side street salted (including mine), and the main streets don't seem to get salted until after the morning rush, which is useless. I read in the newspaper a few months ago that the state of Ohio is expected to have a road salt shortage this year (there's endless amounts of salt underneath Lake Erie, but apparently the mining companies can't mine it quickly enough to keep up with demand), so I'm going to be generous and assume that's why the roads aren't getting salted on time.

I felt terrible having to miss those two days of work, when I already haven't had a full paycheck in a month. The BOE kept changing their mind about which days they were going to close for Christmas, and finally they decided to close through Monday, which is great for regular employees, who have paid time off, but not so great for temps, who get nothing. On top of that, we're just about finished with the voter history, and from what one of the other temps told me, based on what she heard on Christmas Eve, next Tuesday might be our last day of work. The BOE had been pushing us to finish up the voter history by December 31st, presumably to get us off the payroll before the beginning of the year, so I'm anticipating being permanently laid off next week.

I knew this was a temp job, so I guess I shouldn't be upset, but at the same time, I had expected to find another job before this one ended. I applied for unemployment pay when I was laid off the first time, but my claim was denied because I hadn't been at the BOE for at least 20 weeks (I've only been there about 16 weeks). Normally they'd take into account my prior employment as well, but my last job was with the national offices of a church, and churches are not required to pay into the state unemployment fund, so the 3 years I spent at the church don't count as "covered employment". In my opinion, just because an employer doesn't have to pay into the unemployment fund, doesn't mean they shouldn't.

I'm just really scared about how my husband and I are going to manage once I'm laid off again. We're already struggling as it is, and I can't stand the thought of having a repeat of this summer, where we had to choose between paying the rent and buying food. The selection of jobs out there has been pretty slim lately, and I haven't even been able to get any interviews for the ones I've applied for. Things have gotten so bad here in the Cleveland area that one of the major hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic, has a hiring and raise freeze. I ran into a friend of mine who works for the other major hospital system in the area, University Hospitals, and he said they cut all of his overtime. My landlord has a tenant who works for Lincoln Electric, another major employer here in Cleveland, and his tenant told him Lincoln laid off a ton of employees, basically anyone who has been there less than 3 years. This is the first layoff Lincoln has had since 1948 - 60 years! If that doesn't show how bad things are with the economy, I don't know what does.

Needless to say, Christmas was pretty lean for us this year. I spent about $250 on presents for both of the kids, and wouldn't even have spent that much, if not for my mother and sister giving me $75 to use towards the kids' presents. My husband and I didn't buy each other gifts this year. Even though I didn't buy a whole lot, the kids were happy with what they got. On Christmas Eve we usually go to my older sister Desiree's house for dinner and a gift exchange among the kids. This year I didn't know anyone had organized a gift exchange, and no one told me about it until a week before Christmas, when I had already spent my extra money on my kids' gifts. My mom bought gifts for me to give to my niece and nephew (whose names I had for the gift exchange), which I really appreciated, because I was pretty much broke before Christmas.

Since I didn't buy anything personally for my niece and nephew, I wanted to crochet something for them. I raided my yarn stash and made hats for both. The first is a newsboy-style cap that I crocheted for my 11 year old niece, Alexis (Desiree's daughter).
I used some Red Heart Kids and Caron Simply Soft from my stash. I had barely a full skein of the Red Heart kids, and it ended up being the exact amount I needed for the hat. The pattern was a free one I found on Ravelry ("Swirls Cap"). I'm really happy with how it came out (although I think the swirls would show better in a solid color yarn), and I anticipate making a lot more of these. Everyone raved about it.

My kids had fun on Christmas Eve. My sister has a big house, so there's a lot of room for them to run around and play with their cousins. Here's the "three amigos" - my Bethany, her cousin Alexis (middle) and her cousin Rosie (right end). That's Alexis's dog, Tanner, in the photo. He's a Labradoodle (Labrador and Poodle mix). Alexis is allergic to dogs, but Labradoodles are hypoallergenic and don't shed (his fur feels just like a lamb's wool - I bet someone could even spin it into yarn!), so Alexis isn't allergic to him.
My kids had fun on Christmas Eve. My sister has a big house, so there's a lot of room for them to run around and play with their cousins. Here's the "three amigos" - my Bethany, her cousin Alexis (middle) and her cousin Rosie (right end). That's Alexis's dog, Tanner, in the photo. He's a Labradoodle (Labrador and Poodle mix). Alexis is allergic to dogs, but Labradoodles are hypoallergenic and don't shed (his fur feels just like a lamb's wool - I bet someone could even spin it into yarn!), so Alexis isn't allergic to him.
Here's my adorable little niece, Jenna with her dad: And Jenna with Bethany:
My birthday was December 26th, and my brother-in-law's was the 27th, so my youngest sister Shauna baked a Christmas tree shaped cake for us on Christmas Eve. I turned 35 on the 26th. Only 5 more years until I turn 40 - boy, does that sound depressing! I was feeling pretty lousy on Christmas, about my job situation. A temp coworker and I were joking around about how it's a good thing we can't see into the future, because if we had looked ahead to 2008, and saw ourselves at the BOE scanning signatures in poll books for $10 an hour, we'd have wanted to scream. I told her if I could have looked into the future to see what I'd be doing when I turned 35, I'd really be upset.

I get introspective around this time of year, and I can't help but feel disappointed in myself. I worked so hard to get an education and work experience - I dropped out of high school in the 11th grade and worked at a fast food restaurant, but I went on to get a GED, went to a trade school to learn some office skills, graduated from college after attending for 10 long years off and on, started graduate school, and got progressively better paying jobs. Now here am I am feeling like none of it mattered. I have a $10 an hour temp job (the last time I earned $10 an hour was in 1999), that is ending shortly, and no prospects for another job. I'm still renting. I have a mountain of bills I can't pay. I have no medical insurance. I can't sleep at night and have been getting stomach pains from the stress. I've taken my graduate education off my resume, thinking it probably makes me look overqualified for most jobs I've applied for, and now I'm at the point where I'm wondering if I shouldn't list my bachelor's degree either, which is a pretty depressing prospect.

I woke up on my birthday not even wanting to get out of bed. My husband tried hard to cheer me up, and I appreciated it. He bought me birthday cards from him and the kids, and bought me some slippers and a fleece blanket (since I'm always freezing). He had gone to Walmart, and wanted to buy me a sewing machine, but couldn't find one he could afford. I appreciated the thought though. My sister Shauna gave me a pair of (pink!) fleece pajamas, and the Doris Chan book, "Everyday Crochet" (crochet books are good!). My good friend Latanya, who lives in Dallas (and who makes me jealous with reports of the warm weather down there!) sent me two flannel nightgowns for Christmas and my birthday. My husband and I kids I went out to eat at Bob Evans for dinner. We don't eat out very often, and when we do, Bob Evans or Red Robin are about as expensive as we get. We're on such a tight budget right now, that I wouldn't have gone if not for having two coupons for free kids' meals and drinks (which the kids got from Bob Evans' free birthday club).

I also got a couple of surprises in the mail recently. Last week I got a box in the mail, and I had no idea who it was from. I opened it up and found a beautiful pink knitted scarf (interestingly the exact color of my winter coat), and some pretty pink yarn. I was racking my brain all day trying to figure out who it was from, until I realized it was probably a PIF gift. I was right - it was my PIF gift from Hayley of Knittyauntie.com. It wa a really nice surprise!

The second surprise was a package of gifts for my kids from
Katrina, which arrived on my birthday. Here's what she sent:

a Hannah Montana bag and notebook for Bethany:
a Disney Cars apron (great for arts and crafts!), and a Cars wallet (I didn't get a chance to take a photo) for Dominic:And yes, there's more - two beautiful Christmas stockings!

Katrina handmade the bag, the apron, and the stockings - aren't they awesome?! The kids love getting mail, and they were thrilled with everything Katrina sent. Bethany thought Katrina had bought the bag, because it looks so well made. The apron looks wonderful too! Thank you so much, Katrina! I am always amazed at how generous fellow crafters on the web can be. Katrina's package really made my day!

That's about all that's been going on lately. My husband's company is shut down until January 5th, so I've been enjoying having him home at night, and it helps that he'll be able to stay home with the kids for their Christmas vacation. Other than the hats I made for Christmas, I haven't crocheted anything else lately. When I'm worried about things, I can't concentrate on crocheting. I've been reading a lot lately though. I just finished a couple of books - "Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother's Story" by asha bandele (no typo - she spells it lowercase), which I got free from Amazon.com through their Vine program, and "Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx" by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. Something Like Beautiful was good, but Random Family was fantastic, definitely one of the best books I've read in a long time. I highly recommend it.

I still have no satellite TV service, so I've been checking a lot of DVD's out from the library lately. My husband and I watched Michael Moore's "Sicko" yesterday. It was excellent, and heartbreaking, too. One story particularly bothered me - a 30 something year old man, married with kids, who died from leukemia because his insurance company would not pay for a bone marrow transplant (his son was a marrow match) because they said the treatment was "experimental". The whole documentary is a real condemnation of the state of health care in this country.

Well, it's pretty late, so I need to finish this up and go to bed. Can you believe that after -20 degree (with wind chill) temperatures and freezing rain for the past couple of days, that it's actually 64 degrees and dry here in the Cleveland area right now??? I'm trying hard not to get my hopes up that it's going to stay that way!

Quick Update

2008-12-16T18:53:00.003-05:00

Well, I started back at work at the BOE on Monday. Can you believe it??? They laid off 13 of us last Tuesday, then Thursday, the Secretary of State ordered them to lay off the remaining 10 temps, which they did, and told them not to expect to come back until around the first of the year. But then they called us on Friday afternoon they called all of the temps from my area, plus a lot of the laid off temps from the absentee ballot department, to start working on voter history for the November 4th election.

There's about 50 of us sitting in a big room working on poll books assembly-line style. When I was in my regular department, the supervisors didn't mind if temps talked, listed to I Pods, etc., were a couple of minutes late to work, etc. as long we got our work done, but now the supervisors are walking around staring at us all day, glaring at anyone who talks, coming down on anyone who's even a few minutes late to to work, and pushing us to work faster. Supposedly they have a deadline to get the voter history done, but I suspect they just want us to get done as quickly as possible so they can lay us off again (the head of HR keeps stopping by to find out how much work we've completed so far).

Unfortunately, I found out that I probably won't qualify for unemployment pay once I'm laid off for good, because I've only been at the BOE about 13 weeks so far (I would need 20 weeks of covered employment - i.e., working for an employer who pays into the state unemployment fund), and my previous employer was a church, which aren't required to pay into the state unemployment fund. I'm trying hard to find another job before this BOE one ends. I am glad to be back at work in the meantime.

I took an employment test for a temp job with the Census Bureau today. It was being held at my alma mater, Cleveland State (conveniently located a few blocks down the street from the BOE). One of my temp coworkers (another CSU graduate) and I walked down there today at lunch time to take the test.They have some thousands of jobs open, but most of them are "field" positions - going door to door surveying people, for $9.99 an hour (really! They pay $9.99 an hour!). No thanks - that sounds like too much stress and aggravation - being outside all day in bad weather, dealing with people who might be rude, nasty, crazy, or perverted, being sent into rough neighborhoods, working nights and weekends and holidays. They do have some office positions open, but not as many. Most people want the office jobs, so I don't know how much luck I'd have getting one, but I figure it doesn't hurt to try.

I don't have any crochet projects to show - I'm working on something for a coworker, and I'll post pictures when I'm done, but I do have something else crochet-related. I came across this on a fellow blogger's website and think it's important (not to mention pretty alarming) for any crafters who sell their work to read.

Work

2008-12-10T22:32:00.010-05:00

Well, I got laid off from the BOE yesterday. Sigh... We finished most of the work from the November 4th election and a small local election on November 18th, so it had been pretty slow the past two weeks. The head of the BOE wanted the director of my department to get rid of all 23 of the temps, but she only let 10 (including me) go instead. She kept apologizing to us, and said she feels terrible having to lay people off so close to Christmas, and with the economy here being so bad. The director is pushing for her to lay off more temps, if not all of them. We're supposed to be called back in a week to a week and a half to update voter history for the November 4th election (when we get the poll books back from the BOE warehouse where they're being used for an audit), but I can't see them calling us back before Christmas.

In the meantime, this leaves me in a real mess financially, especially coming after having a short check from being off for Thanksgiving. I applied for unemployment pay yesterday. I don't know if I'll get approved for it, but even if I do, it takes 3 weeks to get the first check. I felt nauseous last night worrying, could barely sleep, and woke up with a headache. God willing another, permanent job (or at least a better paying temp job) will turn up for me quickly. The Census Bureau is hiring for some temp jobs in Cleveland, to start in February, so I'm going to go take their employment test next Tuesday.

Well, I do have a couple more crochet projects to show. The first is a hat and blanket set my coworker, Lola, paid me to crochet for her daughter. I finished them about a month ago, but never got around to blogging about them.
The hat is from "Stitch N' Bitch: The Happy Hooker" (I added a flower and used half double crochet instead of double) and the blanket is just rows of striped half double crochet with a fancy border. Lola asked me to put flowers on the blanket too, so I sewed one to each corner. Here's a close up of the trim:
I used Red Heart Super Saver in Petal Pink and Soft White. I don't normally use Super Saver, because I think it's scratchy, but I was looking at Walmart for some yarn, and all they had in pink and white was the Super Saver, not to mention that I didn't have much money to spend on yarn at the time. I hadn't used Super Saver since I first learned how to crochet, and I was surprised to find that it doesn't feel nearly as scratchy as it used to. I guess Red Heart made some improvements to it. I washed the blanket and hat, soaked them in fabric softener, and dried them with a dryer sheet, and they came out pretty soft afterwards. Lola was really happy with them.

Lola's daughter turned one year old last month, so I crocheted a poncho for her, from a free pattern I found online (I added the flower and the picot trim at the bottom). The pattern used a "crossed bar stitch". I really like the stitch pattern. I used some white Vanna's Choice Baby yarn from my stash, so all I had to buy was the red for the trim. Not a bad gift for $3.00! Here's the poncho:And here's a picture of Lola's daughter, Heaven, wearing it:

Isn't she cute?!

Well, off to get the kids' clothes ready for school tomorrow, and watch an episode from one of the "Medium" DVD boxed sets I just got from the library.

Lots of Hats!

2008-12-07T23:30:00.005-05:00

I enjoyed reading all of your comments about dressing vs. stuffing, LOL! I see I still can't find anyone to come to a consensus about what the difference is, if any!

It's been a depressing past week since I last posted. The three days off from work for Thanksgiving were nice, except that I won't get paid for any of them. I didn't take them off by choice - the BOE decided to close all three days, and they don't give temps holiday pay. If I had a choice between taking Wednesday and Friday off without pay, or working, I would have gone to work, because I need the money so badly.

I've been working a 9:30-5:30 schedule at the BOE since I started in September -not my choice - that was just the shift they had open. Well, the day before Thanksgiving, the supervisor in my area who's usually there until 5:30 decided she wanted to leave at 4:30, so she sent me and the one other temp who stays until 5:30, home early (without pay for the last hour, of course). At 4:00 this past Thursday, she informed us she couldn't stay until 5:30, because the BOE put a freeze on overtime. We had to leave at 4:30 again, leaving us another hour short. Friday morning, me and my coworker come in at our regular 9:30, and are informed that we would be leaving at 4:30 again. Naturally, we were upset. We're already going to be short 23 hours on our paycheck next week between Thanksgiving and the two hours we had to leave early, not to mention have to leave early on Friday.

My coworker and I asked the supervisor if we could just skip our lunch (we get an hour) but she said it would have to be approved by the head of the department, who wasn't in on Friday. After that, we decided to go to HR, and the head of HR approved us skipping lunch so we wouldn't be short an hour on Friday. He also told us that now that election season is over, everyone at the BOE would be going back to an 8:30-4:30 schedule. How nice of them to notify us at the last minute. Neither of us has a problem with coming in at 8:30; it just made us mad that they didn't give us any kind of advance notice, so that we ended up short those hours. Being short two or three hours might not seem like much to a supervisor who probably makes $50,000+ a year, but to an employee who makes a measly $10 an hour, it does matter.

I get paid next week, and I've just been feeling sick with worry over how I'm going to manage with my check being so short. I normally get about $600 after taxes (and that damn mandatory 10% Ohio Public Employees Retirement System deduction) every two weeks, but with all the hours I'm short, I'll be getting about $380 on my next check. My husband and I haven't been able to buy a single Christmas present for the kids yet. My husband also gets paid next week (our last checks before Christmas), so we were planning on going Christmas shopping next Saturday but with my check being short, by the time we pay a few bills and buy groceries, we'll be lucky if we even have $150-200 left to spend on both kids. I know that's better than nothing, but even at Walmart, that doesn't go far.

To make matters worse, it feels like everything around my house is falling apart or needs to be replaced all at once. My 6 year old washing machine is nearly completely shot. It won't spin at all (and it's beyond repairable), which means my clothes all come out sopping wet, and take multiple cycles in the dryer to dry. I put a load of jeans in the dryer today, and no, I'm not exaggerating, they're were still damp after 3 hours of drying. And then remember I mentioned that the picture tube blew on my TV back in August? When I started working for the BOE, we got a used 32 inch TV from a TV repair shop for $200. It worked fine until last week when the picture tube starting going on it, too. It shuts off and won't come back on for 10-15 minutes at a time. Even my artificial Christmas tree barely made it up this year - my husband had to tie the top together - how ironic is that?? My daughter and I are also both desperately in need of hair cuts (I got mine cut last in March, and hers in June). On top of that, I really need to get my cat to the vet, since it looks like she's developed some kind of skin infection, plus she's due for her shots. I can't even afford to take her, and I feel terrible about it.

Oh, and I almost forgot - remember last January I posted about a minor accident my husband had on the freeway coming home from work one morning (slid on some ice and hit a fence)? Well, the other day, he got a bill in the mail from ODOT (Ohio Department of Transportation), billing him $175 for the fence! How crazy is that??? First of all, he only had the accident because the roads were icy and NOT salted (he wasn't speeding or driving recklessly), and secondly, the fence was barely damaged (my husband pointed it out to me one day when we drove past)! And, they haven't even fixed the fence yet! Both of us have been paying taxes to the state of Ohio to years. Don't part of our tax dollars go towards road repair??? ODOT will just have to get in line behind all of the other places I owe money to.

My husband and I have cut back drastically on every expense we could since I lost my last job in April, and even after I started working for the BOE. Our satellite TV service is off (not a huge deal, since I wasn't a big TV watcher, but I miss watching "Medium" on Lifetime on Saturday nights). Our cell phones are off (which is a big deal, because I have no way to reach my husband at work at night, and it's extremely hard to reach me at the BOE, since although the temps have phones, we don't have direct numbers, or even extensions where we can be reached). We rarely go anywhere on weekends anymore, except for grocery shopping or the occasional relative's house. We rarely eat out anymore, and I pack lunches 99% of the time. But even so, we're just still scraping by.

I am thankful to have a job at all, but it's depressing going to work every day, and barely bringing home enough even for the essentials, let alone anything extra. I get totally depressed every winter, between the snow and cold, the early nightfall and missing my dad who died during the winter, and worrying about money on top of it just makes worse.

My Bethany went to Girl Scout camp this weekend though, so at least she had a fun weekend. Her troop went to a camp in Richfield, Ohio, a rural town about 45 minutes from Cleveland. We drove out there Friday evening to drop her off. They went camping there last winter, too, but we're not really familiar with the area, so between that, and it being dark, we totally missed the camp entrance, drove way out of our way. She had to be there at 6:45, so we left the house at 5:45, but with getting lost, we ended up not getting there until a little after 7. Luckily a few other parents were also late, and the troop leaders were still waiting for stragglers, so she didn't miss out on camping.

I was up until 2:30 in the morning on Thursday night, packing Bethany's stuff for camp (everytime I'd think I was done I realized I forgot something), cleaning up the house, taking care of paperwork for the kids for school (it seems there's always something to complete), etc, and ended up getting 4 hours of sleep before I had to get up for work on Friday. Me, my husband and Dominic all fell asleep about 8:30, after we got back from dropping off Bethany. I can't remember the last time I went to sleep that early. Bethany and Dominic usually drive me crazy on weekends with their squabbling and pestering each other, but when Bethany's at camp, the house feels lonely. I kind of missed it though when we picked her up at camp this morning, and she and Dominic started bickering in the car, LOL!

At least one good thing has happened lately. I got a call on Friday about a benefits assistant (HR) job I applied for with an iron ore mining company that has their headquarters in downtown Cleveland. I didn't get the message until I got home from work, so I'm going to call her tomorrow. Please wish me luck that a better job turns up for me soon.

Well, since I've probably bored you with all the non-crochet related stuff, I have some crochet projects to show. I've been on a hat making spree lately. I think hats are probably my favorite thing to crochet. They're quick, but have enough shaping to keep me from getting bored, and it's easy to adjust the sizing. The first two are a couple of hats I crocheted for The Ships Project - a group that sends hand knitted or crocheted hats to U.S. troops stationed overseas.
I used some Caron Simply Soft Shadows yarn from my stash for both. The pattern for the first was from Interweave Crochet. The hat was worked with front post double crochet stitches in the round. I really like the texture, but the bottom of the hat keeps curling up. I added a few rounds of single crochet at the end, but it still keeps curling. The second hat is just a basic beanie done in extended single crochet. I really love how that one came out!

Next are some chemo caps I crocheted for ladies who visit a local cancer support center here in the Cleveland area. My husband's mother died of breast cancer when he was a teenager (many years before I met him), so this was something meaningful for me. I used some Caron Simply Soft Brites from my stash, and a free pattern I found online. I've been working on these for a few months, but just now got around to taking a picture.
My youngest sister asked me to crochet her a hat to wear around her house, since she's freezing all the time, so I came up with this. It's a rolled-brim hat with a motif at the top. I used some green (her favorite color) TLC Cara Mia yarn from my stash. I love that yarn! I bought a ton of it on Ebay last year. The pattern is from a British crochet book, "Beautiful Crochet for Heads, Hands and Toes". Yes, I know the pictures are crappy, but I was trying to hurry up and take them on Thanksgiving, before I left for my brother's house, because I wanted to give the hat to my sister when I saw her there.

I usually crochet during my breaks at work, and so I've had a few coworkers offer to pay me to make them things (although only two actual orders so far). I made this hat, leg warmers, and fingerless gloves set by request from a coworker. The pattern is from the book "Easy as 1-2-3 Crochet". I used Bernat Softee Chunky (one of my favorite cheap yarns) in hot pink and white.
Are you tired of seeing hats yet? I promise I only have one more! The final hat is another one made from Caron Simply Soft Brites. It was a free pattern from the Caron website. I just made it to use up some of my stash yarn. I didn't have anyone in particular in mind for it.
For the past few months I've been thinking about opening an Etsy shop to try to make some extra money. I don't usually have much confidence in my crochet projects (I always feel like everyone else's projects look so much better than mine), so I didn't know if I could actually sell anything I make. After getting lots of compliments at work for things I've crocheted, and now starting to get requests to make people things, I've been thinking more seriously about opening the Etsy shop. I've been making a list of ideas of things to sell (I decided to save the black/bright hat for it), and looking at my stash (I don't want to spend a lot of money upfront in case I can't sell anything) to see what I can make from it. If any of my blog readers who are Etsy sellers have any tips on getting started, what sells well, etc., I'd really appreciate hearing them (I know I need a better way of displaying hats!).

My husband has been DJ'ing (don't know if that's how it's supposed to be spelled, and too tired to care!) parties for the past decade - not regularly, just here and there, but he decided he wants to start pursuing it more actively, since we really need some extra money. My plumber brother set up a website for his business through Yahoo Small Business, and their websites are free to set up, and only $8.95 a month to run, so I've been working on making one for my husband's DJ services. Even if he only did a few parties or weddings a year, that would still be a huge help to us financially.

Well, off to clean up the house and finish laundry and go to bed...

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

2008-11-30T23:20:00.023-05:00

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

My husband got up early and made (from scratch!) red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (my favorite kind of cake!), and two sweet potato pies. I didn't try the pies - I'll let you in on a little secret (I don't like pie). I know, I must be the only person in the world who doesn't like pie. I love nearly any kind of chocolate dessert, but I don't even like chocolate pies (yes, I'm weird!). Here's what's left of the 32 cupcakes:
Maybe you, my blog readers, can help me with a debate my husband and I have had every Thanksgiving for years: I say that "stuffing" and "dressing" refer to the same exact food, and the two terms are just used in different cultures, that black people (my husband is black, as most of you already know) usually refer to it as dressing, but that white people refer to it as stuffing. My husband insists that's not the case, that stuffing is a dish made with white bread, and that dressing is a dish made with cornbread. I've asked numerous people their opinion, and get different answers. Any and all opinions would be appreciated (I know you'll side with me, right?!), ha, ha!

My husband and kids and I went to my oldest brother's house for dinner, and of course, I couldn't come over without bringing a crocheted gift for his daughter, my adorable 10 month old niece, Jenna. I crocheted her a pumpkin hat from Crochet Today magazine. I was looking at the pattern and realized I had all the yarn colors I needed in my stash (left over from another project). I used Vanna's Choice Baby yarn. I was afraid the hat might be too small, but it fits perfectly. Here's Jenna with her dad, my brother, Joe the Plumber, LOL! It's true! His name is Joe and he has his own plumbing business.
More pics of the hat:

I had a nice time at dinner. The men entertained themselves by passing around dirty emails on their cell phones, while the women had an intelligent conversation about socialism, the economy, and the state of health care in the U.S. Now, which gender is the smarter one?!

My kids had fun too, with their cousins. Here's my Bethany with her cousins, Rosie (with the brown hair), and Alexis (with the red).
Here's another of Bethany, with Jenna: And here's my Dominic playing with his cousin Kaitlyn:
Dominic was whiny because the older girls went in Rosie's room and closed the door, and wouldn't let him in because he's a boy. He didn't want to go play outside with his boy cousins, but he cheered up after Kaitlyn started playing with him. After we got home, he drew this picture for Kaitlyn (I scanned it and emailed it to my sister), LOL!

Well, back to work tomorrow. I had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off this week. It was nice getting to stay home, but I won't get paid for any of the time off (temps at the BOE don't get holiday pay), so that presents a whole bunch of other problems. Sigh...

We Have a Winner!

2008-11-16T23:15:00.003-05:00

Thank you to everyone who entered my blogiversary contest - I appreciate all of your comments!

And now for the winner...

Denise of Knitchat.com (a fellow crafty blogger and Ohioan too)! Denise picked 999, the closest number to 998, from the Random Number Generator:

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:998
Timestamp: 2008-11-17 04:15:19 UTC

© 1998-2008 Mads Haahr Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Valid CSSWeb Design by TSDA

Congratulations, Denise!

Blogiversary!

2008-11-09T22:46:00.004-05:00

Today is my one year blogiversary! Woohoo!

I started this blog mainly to keep track of my crochet projects. I didn't know if I would even get any readers, let alone any regular readers, or whether I would even have enough to write about to keep it going for a year. I'm thankful for all the great people who regularly read my blog, and I look forward to reading your comments. I also appreciate all the kindness you've shown me through the rough recent times in my life with my job situation and whatnot.

So, to thank all my lovely blog readers, I'm having a giveaway!

I'm giving away this "spa set", crocheted from Red Heart Eco-Cotton in the "Candy Marl" color. The yarn is actually made partly from recycled t-shirt scraps. There's a scrubby washcloth, back scrubby and soap sack. The pattern is from the book, "Easy as 1-2-3 Crochet".
To enter the giveway, just leave me a comment with any three-digit number from 100-999, by 11PM EST on Sunday, November 16th. I won't update my blog again before then. On the 16th, I'll use the handy-dandy Random Number Generator to generate a three-digit number, and the person who picked the closest number will win.

Good luck!

True Stories from the Board of Elections

2008-11-03T23:35:00.008-05:00

WARNING: LONG, TEXT-HEAVY POST!

I was just looking at my blog, and realized I haven't posted since November 4th. I didn't realize it had been that long. I've been meaning to post, but seven hours a day of answering phone calls from irate and/or confused voters, not to mention answering the same questions over and over and over, for the past month, has left me exhausted. Since Election Day is nigh (thank God - I am burned out hearing and talking about ballots!), here's a little sampling of some true phone calls we've received in the registration department at the Board:

Voter: "I am a Native American woman, and I read my Bible every day. My husband, God help his soul, is a Republican. I'm a Democrat, and I want to know why my husband received his absentee ballot in the mail, and I haven't received mine. Are you only sending out ballots to Republicans?"

Voter: "I received my absentee ballot, and I want to know why John McCain is at the bottom of the list of presidential candidates".

Me: "The candidates are printed in a random order. They are in a different order on every ballot".

Voter: "Why is that?"

Me: "To avoid the appearance of the Board favoring any one candidate".

Voter (sounding doubtful): "Is Barack Obama at the bottom of any ballots?"

Me: "I'm quite sure he is"

Voter: "I don't believe that. I want to speak to a supervisor".

Voter: "I'm filling out my absentee ballot. Should I use a black or a navy blue crayon to complete it?"

Voter: "I'd like to know how I can vote by absentee ballot".

Me: (Explaining the absentee ballot process)

Voter: "Oh, I thought I could just tell you my votes over the phone".

Voter (who starts screaming as soon as I answer the phone): "I received an absentee ballot, and voted for the president. I put it in the mail and just realized that my ballot only had the presidential candidates and judges listed. Where's all the other idiots I've been hearing about on TV, those congresspeople. I wanted to vote for them too!"

Me: "Ma'am, every ballot lists all of the presidential candidates, judges, congressional races, and local issues. There are four pages to the ballot (two double-sided pages marked "vote both sides" in bold lettering).

Voter (still screaming): " This is bullshit! My ballot only had two pages. I know I only received two pages because I'm a Republican. I'm tired of this Democratically controlled county, and I'd better receive a new ballot or I'm going to the media, and not the Fox 8 News (a local news station), I'm going to CNN and the national news.

Voter: "I'd like to know when I'm going to receive my asbentee ballot".

Me: (Gathering caller's name and address to see if we sent out the ballot). "Ma'am, I don't show that we've received an application for a ballot from you".

Voter (screaming): "I sent in applications twice, for both me and my mother."

Me: "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but we haven't received the applications".

Voter: "You're a liar (spewing obscenities at me)!" I sent in those applications and I know they're there! You probably threw them away because I'm a Republican! Those applications had better turn up by Wednesday, or I'm going to the media!"

Me: "Let me have you speak to my supervisor (because I don't get paid enough money to be cussed at).

Later my supervisor tells me the caller told her to "go to hell", and the supervisor told her, "Well, I wouldn't tell you something like that". Caller finally decides to just vote at the polls.

Voter: "There's a group home at the corner of my street, and someone came by to take the residents to vote. Are mentally retarded people allowed to vote?"

Employee (hilarious 75 year old temp employee): "Well, they're allowed to run for office (ha, ha!!)"

Voter: "I just sent in my ballot, and I realized that I forgot to vote for the vice president!"

Employee: "The vice president and president are elected together. If you vote for a presidential candidate, you automatically vote for their running mate as well. You can't mix and match presidents and vice presidents (ha, ha!)".

Voter: "I looked online to see if my absentee ballot was received by you guys, and it says it was challenged".

Me (looking up the information): "Yes sir, it says your ballot was challenged because you did not fully complete the identification envelope. You'll receive a letter from the Board giving you until November 14th to come in and fix the errors in person so your ballot will be counted".

Voter: "My ballot was just challenged because I'm a Republican".

Me: "No sir, we've had plenty of Democratic ballots challenged as well".

Voter: "Well, what if I can't come down to the Board to fix it? What if I'm incapacitated?".

Me: "Let me get your phone number, and I'll have someone from our absentee ballot department call you to see what else you can do".

Voter: "OK, I'll give you my work number, I'm at work right now" (hmmm, he's incapacitated, but he's still able to work???)

Voter: "I received a letter saying my absentee ballot was challenged because I did not put my ballot in the ID envelope".

Me (looks up voter's information: "Yes, that's correct. You'll need to come down to the board in person to correct it for your ballot to be counted".

Voter: "They're (Republicans) trying to keep my vote down, mmmm, hmmm, but no, sir, I'm not going to let them!".

Voter (male - speaking to my pretty, young, coworker, Lola): "Does my registration say whether I'm married or single?"

Coworker: "No, it doesn't".

Voter: "Well, I'm single. You sound pretty."

Coworker (laughing): "I am!" (and then proceeds to get asked out on a date by caller, ha, ha!)

You can imagine what a month this has been for me. If I hear one more conspiracy theory from a voter, I'm going to pull my hair out! Now, this doesn't even include the many voters who want to tell me in great detail their opinions of the election system, the wording of issues on ballots, and the voting process. I want to tell them I'm a measly $10 an hour temp; I have no control over the election system. I've been biting my tongue, being as pleasant and cheerful as I can manage, and counting down the days until this election is over.

Today I received 207 calls in 6.5 hours. Yep, that's approximately 31 calls an hour. I'm tired. As one of my (Republican) coworkers put, "I wish these people who are accusing us of things could just come down here to work for a day and see what really goes on". My thoughts exactly! We are absolutely, incredibly, nonstop busy. There's barely time to breathe let alone worry about people's poltical affliation.

The job isn't all bad though. For the most part I like my (well, most of them, anyway) coworkers. I've met some other temps who have been really great. One lady (who is also looking for a permanent job for after this one ends) and I have been exchanging job hunting tips, and news of job openings, and encouraging each other in the job search. Laughing about crazy calls from voters helps relieve the aggravation too. A few ladies from our absentee ballot department had me cracking up one day when they told me about how some voters (who are required to provide identification information when requesting an absentee ballot) in lieu of a driver's license number or photocopy, have sent photos of themselves. One lady sent a photo of her and her boyfriend on vacation at the beach, complete with herself circled. Another lady sent a photo of herself standing in her front lawn, holding an American flag, her house address visible in the background. Ha, ha!

I must say though that not every phone call I've gotten has been from someone rude or just plain dumb. I've gotten some really nice phone calls - people who have gone out of their way to be polite to me and people who have been genuinely appreciative of the help I've given them. One lady told me "Thank you for your service during this election season". Another told me, "You know, people always complain about the Board of Elections, but everyone I've spoken to there has been so nice and helpful".

And, I must admit, it makes me feel good to see so many people excited about the election. One young woman, just turned 18, voting for the first time, asked me when the election results would be shown on the news. She said when she was younger, she always liked watching the results come in state by state, and she's looking forward to voting and watching the results on TV. Another young woman, a college student, called about her absentee ballot. I told her it had been mailed, and to please be patient, because we had over 250,000 requests for ballots. She sounded nearly in tears when she told me how happy she is that so many people want to vote. I've gotten calls from people who haven't voted in 20+ years who want to vote now. Calls from felons fresh out of prison who are thrilled to hear they can still vote (in Ohio they can vote; they just have to re-register). Calls from people who are hospitalized with serious illnesses, but still want to vote (the Board has employees who go to the hospitals to help patients vote absentee).

I went to work this past Saturday to earn some overtime, and got recruited to help out the poll workers in the basement. We were only supposed to be open from 9-1 for voting on Saturday, but people started lining up at 8AM that morning. By 1PM, there was a line of people stretched from the poll workers tables, all through the room, down the hallway, up two flights of stairs, in the lobby, and all the way down the street three blocks away. The county sheriff had to go out and cut off the line at 1:30PM, but there were so many voters that the last one in line finished voting at 3PM. Apparently, we're the place to be these days, because we've gotten visits from a few celebrities (the rapper Lil' Bow Wow was there, and of course all the young ladies ran down to the lobby to gush over him), from the mayor of Cleveland, and from the secretary of state, among others. All of the local news stations have been in and around the building taping segments, and CNN even sent Anderson Cooper to visit the Board and do a story. CNN has had a news truck camped outside for days. I must admit, as aggravating as the job has been at times, it has also been pretty interesting getting a first-hand look at how the election process works.

In other news, I almost forgot to mention that I had a job interview today, for a position with my alma mater, Cleveland State University. OK, it's just a secretarial position with the law college, but hey, it pays better than the pitiful $10 an hour I'm making now, and I'm pretty sure it's a union position too, not to mention that I'd have some health insurance. Bringing home $600 every two weeks after taxes, with no medical insurance or vacation time, just isn't cutting it. The interview went pretty well, I think. They're supposed to make a hiring decision by Friday. Please keep your fingers crossed that I get the job. My husband is back to working 5 days a week, but his company is still planning on shutting down for two weeks unpaid at Christmastime, so I sure can't afford to be unemployed then (the job at the Board is expected to end around November 28th, if not sooner).

Well, I've got to get to bed so I'll have the energy to deal with another couple hundred phone calls tomorrow. At least I'm not scheduled to work tomorrow night. A lot of my coworkers have to work their regular shift, then head over to the Board's warehouse to open, sort, scan, and count ballots. They're (literally) going to be there all night, looking at about an 18-20 hour shift tomorrow.

A couple other temps have griped because I haven't been working 12+ hour days like many of them, but with 10 year old and 5 year old kids, and a husband who works nights, I just can't do it. I sure could use the extra money, but no way am I leaving my kids home alone early in the morning (before my husband gets home from work) so I can get to work at 7AM, not to mention that with an hour and a half, two bus commute, I'd have to leave the house at 5:30AM just to get there by 7. No thanks. I've been upfront with the supervisors in my department about my situation with the kids and my husband's work schedule, and they've been OK with it, so I don't give a &%$# what a few coworkers have to say about it. My kids, my family, and my safety are going to come first over this job.

Well, off to bed. Stay tuned for some crochet project photos in a couple of days!

Sigh...

2008-10-04T15:27:00.011-04:00

I know, I haven't updated my blog in a while. I have been doing some crocheting lately. I finished the front of my son's "D" pillow. I crocheted some chemo caps for a local cancer support center, and I started on a lacey wrap from some TLC Cara Mia from my stash. I planned to post some pictures, but honestly I just don't have the energy for it right now. The last few days have been a mess. I've had a terrible cold all week. My face is swollen, my head hurts, my nose is stuffed up and drippy, and I have a cough that keeps me up all night. I've been taking cold medicine, but it doesn't help. Both of my kids are sick too.

Then on Thursday my husband got some bad news at work. First the factory he works for cut out all the overtime (which we were really depending on). Next they let all of their temps go (some of which had been with the company over a year). Now they had a meeting with the employees and said they are going to start voluntary layoffs, cut the remaining employees down to a four day work week starting in mid-October, and shut down (unpaid) for two weeks between Christmas and the first week of January. I'm feeling sick just thinking about it. We're already scraping by what with the overtime being cut, me making so much less than I did at my last job, plus food, gas, and utilities constantly going up, and now this happens.

His company says they're struggling because of the economy, but my husband says the consensus among his coworkers is that the company was doing fine until they brought in a couple of new managers, who made a bunch of poor decisions that made the company lose a few major customers. But of course, nothing will happen to the managers. It seems like the higher up a person is on the "food chain" of a company, the fewer repercussions there are if they screw something up. The CEO of our largest bank here in the Cleveland area, National City Bank, ran the company into the ground, to the point where their stock is now going for less than the price of a hamburger, but he was still able to retire this year with a $46 million dollar retirement package. Just sickening.

My job at the board of elections is still going OK at least. Last week the head of the registration department stopped me and asked what my name is. I told her and she said she's been meaning to find me to tell me thank you. I was confused until she said the two supervisors (below her) had been telling what a good job I've been doing and that they're very happy with my "work output". I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but it made me feel good because in the 3 years I spent at my last job, I'm hard pressed to recall a single time that my boss actually praised for anything I did well (yet she was always waiting to criticize me if I made a mistake).

Still though, the job is going to end either around the election or near the end of November, and I'm trying hard not to worry about the worst-case scenario of my husband being on shut down with no pay around Christmas and me not having found another job. I've still been looking for a permanent job, but the job market just seems to have really dried up around here. At least from talking to my fellow temp coworkers I see that I'm not the only one struggling to find a regular job. When I was first let go from my last job, I was hoping to find something at least using my degree, but now as pitiful as it sounds I'd be happy just to find a secretarial job as long as it's something permanent, and I can some health insurance. I'm way overdue to go to the doctor for my annual gynecological exam and I have a bunch of dental work I need done, but I can't do either. I'm also scared to death of getting sick with anything that requires a doctor's visit or prescriptions while I have no insurance.

I'm overwhelmed right now in every sense of the word. I'll try to post some pictures of my crochet projects when I feel better.

Contest Alert

2008-09-21T12:15:00.006-04:00

Go over to www.redbookmag.com/sweeps and you can enter to win one of two $176.00 Jimmy Bean's Wool Eco Dishcloth sets. Hurry up though, because the contest ends September 24th.

Pillows!

2008-09-17T23:06:00.007-04:00

Remember I said I had some small crochet projects to show?

Well, here's two of them:

The first is a pillow I crocheted for my 10 year old niece Rosie (my niece Jenna's older sister) to match her bedrooms. Her bedroom is lime green (yep, it's bright!) with a lime green, hot pink, and white floral bedding set. I think this pillow matches pretty good. I used a 14" pillow form, and sewed two pieces of gingham fabric (with my crappy hand sewing skills!) over it to make a cover.

Here are the stats:

Pattern: Afghan Reincarnation - Crochet Today, December 06/January 07 issue

Yarn: Bernat Softee Chunky in Hot Pink, Hot Green, and White

Hooks: J & K

I also have a picture of Rosie with my Bethany, when they had a sleepover a few weeks ago:

Aren't the matching dresses cute?! My mom bought them for the girls last year.

The other project I have to show is a pillow I crocheted for Bethany. I saw a pattern for crocheted letters in a book, and thought of making a monogram pillow.

Here's a photo and stats:

Pattern: Letter from the book "201 Crochet Motifs, Blocks, Projects, and Ideas"

Yarn: Vanna's Choice Baby in Lamb, Aqua, & Mint

Hooks: I & K

I used a single crochet square worked in rounds with an I hook for the base. For the letter I crocheted with a double strand of yarn and a K hook to make the letter B extra-big. I think it would probably have looked better done in a chunky weight yarn, but I couldn't find an inexpensive chunky weight in the colors Bethany wanted.

I'm going to crochet a D pillow for my Dominic soon. Poor kid never gets any thing crocheted for him. It's just so difficult finding crochet patterns for boys that are beyond the baby/toddler years. Dominic is crazy about pirates, and loves dressing up as one. He had a pirate hat from his Halloween costume last year, but it's been long since lost, so he gets dressed up in the remaining pieces from his costume, and then puts a pencil case (unzipped, and turned sideways) on his head for a hat, ha, ha! It's hilarious! I'm going to have to snap a picture of him the next time he does it, so I can embarass him with it when he gets older. The other day he asked me if I can "yarn him a pirate hat". He's going to have to settle for one from the store, because even if I did have a pattern, I think that's way beyond my level of expertise.

In other news, the new job is going good. The work is pretty boring, but it's easy, and the supervisors are nice. The only thing I really dislike is the commute. The board of elections is in downtown Cleveland, but on the edge of downtown, so I have to take two busses to get there. I live barely over 10 miles from downtown, a 20 minute commute by car, but between the bus rides and all the waiting around for them (since our local transit authority recently cut a bunch of busses from the routes) I have to leave a little after 8 in the morning just to get there by 9:30, and then I get off work at 5:30, and don't get home until nearly 7.

It's hard because I only have about two hours with the kids when I get home for baths, homework, etc. At least the position is only lasting about two months. Hopefully after that I'll be able to find a permanent job where I can get home earlier in the evening.

Baby Gifts

2008-09-14T23:38:00.008-04:00

My husband found the USB cord for my camera, so I have some crochet project pictures to show.

First is a dress I crocheted for Katrina for her new baby. The pattern is the Lacy Baby Frock from the July/August issue of Crochet Today. It's a 6-12 month size. I used a G hook, and some Red Heart Hula yarn from my stash. It's such pretty yarn, but so hard to crochet with because the colored strand comes loose easily, and the yarn tends to unravel. The pattern was really easy though - I finished the dress is a little over a day. The second is a hat and poncho for my 8 month old niece, Jenna. I used some stash Cotton Ease in Candy Blue, an H hook for the hat, and a J for the poncho. The pattern is a free one from Luv to Crochet.

Here's Jenna with her mom, my sister-in-law, Gehan. Now, I know I'm probably naturally biased because I'm her aunt, but I think Jenna is just an adorable baby!

Well, I have to get going to bed, because I have to go work tomorrow. Wow, that feels weird to be writing that, after being out of work for so long!

Good News!

2008-09-13T01:00:00.012-04:00

Guess what?! I got a job! I'm so excited! OK, it's only a temporary one - doing data entry for the local county board of elections, and it only pays $10 an hour, but it's a job nonetheless! I start on Monday. I'm really looking forward to getting out of the house, and bringing home a paycheck again, but I'm going to miss being home with my kids in the afternoons after school, and being able to go with my husband to pick them up everyday.

It's been pretty interesting watching the daily debacle of pickup time. The school has had so many problems with parents driving recklessly near the school, and in the parking lots, that they had to institute special driving lanes for parents, and designate certain doors for kids who are being picked up, and for kids who are walking home. It doesn't seem to matter though, because so many parents just blatantly ignore the rules.

The parents who drive have to circle around to the back of the school, and get in line to pull up to the side entrance to pick up their kids. The kids wait with their class and a teacher, who walks them to their parent's vehicle. Just today my husband nearly got sideswiped by a parent who decided they didn't want to wait, and pulled out, speeding through the parking lot. A couple of times, parents decided to park right in the path of the line of cars, blocking traffic.

And. in the school newsletter this week, the principal mentioned a mom who (dropping her kid off at the wrong entrance), let her kid out of the car, and while the kid had barely stepped onto the curb, sped off, and nearly hit him or her! Can you be in that much of a hurry to get to work or wherever that you would nearly hit your own kid??? I'm constantly amazed by the sense of entitlement some of the parents have, this rules- be-damned attitude.

I've been meaning to update my blog, but I've been busy with homework and school-elated things. My Dominic is still getting used to kindergarten. I didn't expect him to have much of a transition period, because he went through several years of full-time preschool, but the first few weeks of kindergarten have been tough for him. I guess it's because kindergarten is more structured - no naps, less playtime, and he has a new teacher and new classmates. He's also getting used to having homework (twice a week). My daughter actually had homework 5 days a week in kindergarten, but she went to a different Catholic school (which closed after she finished kindergarten). Dominic told me "kindergarten is a lot of hard work", ha, ha!

My Bethany likes her 5th grade teacher, and is happy that a lot of her friends are in her class, but her learning disabilities really complicate school for her. I'm working on getting all of the testing done to determine if she has ADD. As time goes on, I'm more and more convinced of it. She has little focus and concentration, even when it comes to actitivies she enjoys, and she is so disorganized and forgetful. She doesn't get her classwork done in time, and perpetually forgets to bring home books and papers she needs for homework, or forgets to write down assignments. She underwent a ton of testing as part of her learning disability diagnosis, and it showed that she has a normal IQ, and above average vocabulary and reading skills, but her grades are all over the place. She'll get an A on a test or assignment one week, and an F the next, and she's failed math the past few years, even with receiving one on one tutoring several times a week. It's frustrating, because she's a bright kid, but it doesn't show in her schoolwork.

Bethany's 4th grade homeroom teacher was fortunately very patient with her, but the other 4th grade teacher, who taught science to Bethany's class, just seemed in my conversations with her to completely disregard Bethany's learning disabilities, and seemed like she just thought Bethany was being lazy when she didn't do well in class. Her 3rd grade teacher was even worse. In my opinion, a teacher should expect that not every kid they ever teach is going to perform at a normal or exceptional level, and in Bethany's case, she can't help having learning disabilities. Learning disabilities don't equal lazy or dumb. We have an appointment coming up with a pediatric neurologist in October, and hopefully that will get us closer to determining if Bethany does indeed have ADD.

Oh well, I guess that's enough ranting for now.

I took Bethany to her pediatrician for a follow-up appointment for her infected hand on Tuesday. Unfortunately, even after a 10-day course of an antibiotic, a steroid, and an antihistamine, her hand is still infected. She's back on the antibiotic for another 10 days now, and has a cream for her hand. I feel so bad for her because the antibiotic leaves her tired, headachy and nauseous, and the cream stings her hand. I'll be glad when the infection is finally cleared up.

As far as crochet projects go, I've been working on a few small projects lately, but can't post the pictures. My computer at home (despite only being 5 years old) was on its "last leg" so my husband's best friend gave him a used computer he didn't need any more. The "new" computer runs a lot better, but I realized it doesn't have a slot for a camera memory card. I have to download pictures from the camera with a USB cable, which unfortunately I misplaced and can't find anywhere. I'll post the pictures when the cable turns up.

I also want to say thank you to Christina, who sent my kids a package of goodies last week! She sent puzzle books, little toys, hair accessories for Bethany, stickers, crayons, and cookie and brownie mixes. The kids love getting mail, so they were very happy to receive it. Thank you again, Christina!

Frustrated

2008-08-26T13:49:00.008-04:00

Remember I said in my last blog post that it seems like everything something goes right for me; something else goes wrong right afterwards?

I was right.

Over the past two weeks, my Bethany developed patches of peeling, sore, bleeding skin on her right hand. I thought it was probably just her eczema flaring up, so we had trying to keep it moisturized, and putting hydrocortisone cream on it. It seemed to be getting worse over the past few days, and I was worried it was infected, so I took her to the pediatrician yesterday.

Yep, it’s infected. And worse, her doctor thinks Bethany has an MRSA staph infection (antibiotic-resistant). The thought had crossed my mind, and I was praying it wouldn’t be one. The MRSA is some scary stuff. Apparently it’s pretty bad too. I feel like the worst mom of the year for not realizing sooner how serious it is and not getting her to the doctor sooner. The doctor thinks it started out as eczema, and then got infected from Bethany scratching it. He said it’s been kept quiet, but there’s been an outbreak of community MRSA cases in the Cleveland area lately. Just my luck for my daughter to get it.

On top of that, her eczema went haywire, and now she has white blotches on her face and arms. She had some as a toddler, but they went away, and I don’t know what made them come back. We ended up with four prescriptions – two oral antibiotics, an oral anti-itch medication, an ointment, and a body shampoo. I’m going to have a make a chart to keep track of what she has to take when, because she’s already on three daily medications just for her asthma and allergies. Arrrggghh! I have to take her back to the doctor after Labor Day to make sure the infection is clearing up, because if it doesn’t, she might end up having to be hospitalized. I’m hoping and praying that won’t happen.

I’m also hoping and praying neither me nor my husband or son ends up contracting the staph either. I’ve been without medical insurance since April – my husband and kids are on his medical insurance through his job, but we couldn’t afford a full family plan – so the last thing I need is to end up needing to go to the doctor or need any prescription medications.

I’m still looking for another job, without much luck. Bezzie and Christina, it’s funny that you mentioned trying to find a law firm that would hire me without any legal experience, because when I was looking at the job ads in my Sunday newspaper, I saw a listing for a paralegal at a bankruptcy firm downtown, that said no experience necessary. I’ve been trying since Sunday to get my #$%@! printer to work so I can print out a cover letter and resume to fax to them before the job gets filled.

Financially, I desperately need to go back to work, but I’m also feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of going back to work full-time. Bethany’s learning disabilities made for a really difficult school year last year. She requires an inordinate amount of help with homework, and between not getting home from work until 6-6:30PM, and having to cram homework, baths, dinner, etc. into the 2 ½ hours before bedtime was so hard. And with Bethany’s learning disabilities, it seemed like there was always some kind of meeting or conference I had to take time off from work to attend, or a doctor’s appointment to take her to.

Now that Dominic is also in school, and having homework (although only two nights a week) the prospect of going back to work full-time again really overwhelms me. I worry not just about the lack of time, but also if I end up working somewhere where I have no flexibility with my schedule, and I can’t take time off for school conferences, etc. Before my husband started working nights, we both did a pretty much equal share of housework, but once he started on nights (he ends up sleeping most of the time when he’s at home), I ended up with most of the housework too, and top of all the other “child care” duties. I would love to be able to just work part-time, but financially it’s not an option for us, and that’s frustrating.

Anyway, I do have a finished crochet project to show. I was looking through some old crochet books this weekend, and came across a pattern for a purse crocheted with Moda Dea Ticker Tape and Cotton-Ease. I’ve had some Ticker Tape in my stash for over a year, that I bought on EBay, but ended up not using, and I couldn’t think of a project to make with it. When I saw the pattern for the purse, I realized it was just the thing. I crocheted one for my best friend for Christmas. I changed the colors, added a flower (can you tell how much I like crocheted flowers?!), and used pink plastic handles instead of bamboo ones.

The pattern was labeled “Intermediate” and I’ve so far only attempted “beginner” and “easy” patterns so I’m pretty proud of myself for managing to make it, especially since the pattern called for front post double crochets – those post stitches used to scare me, LOL! The top came out a little wonky though. I think I messed up the stitch county and didn’t decrease enough at the top. But, my friend doesn’t crochet, so I don’t think she’ll even notice. She loves pink, so I think she’ll be really happy with the purse. It’s nice to have a Christmas present finished months ahead of time. It was a quick project too – I started it on Saturday and finished it on Sunday.

Here are the stats for the bag:

Pattern: “Tropical Colors Purse” from Big Hook Crochet
Yarn: 2 skeins Moda Dea Ticker Tape in “Pink Passion” and 1 skein Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in “Bubblegum”
Hooks: Size K for the bag and size H for the flower

I have some pictures of the kids from their first day of school too (last Thursday). The first day of school is a “drop-in day” where the kids come to school with a parent, visit their classroom, meet their teacher, put away their supplies, pick up books, etc, and then go home. It’s a Catholic school, but the kids get to dress down the first day. Kindergarteners don’t wear uniforms at all, but the older kids wear uniforms after the 1st day. Bethany isn't too fond of the uniforms, but I like them. It’s nice not to have to coordinate outfits every day, plus there's no arguments about clothes, or competion among the kids at the about how they're dressed.

Well, I have to finish this up so I can go pick the kids up from school.

Rock Bottom

2008-08-23T15:15:00.004-04:00

No, I’m not referring to the SpongeBob Rock Bottom episode (you can see I watch too many cartoons!). I feel like I’ve just hit rock bottom this month in every possible way. My job search. Financially. Stress-wise. Everything.

September 9th will make 5 months that I’ve been out of work. I can’t believe it. I’ve applied for dozens of jobs – nonprofit jobs, corporate jobs, government jobs, jobs requiring a college degree, jobs only requiring a high school diploma, but nothing. Other than the fingerprinting/processing session I went to for the IRS on the 6th, nothing.

Remember I said I’d even take a job at Wal-Mart just to have some income coming in? Well, I applied at Wal-Mart about a month ago. And K-Mart, and Sears, and J.C. Penney, and CVS, and Walgreens. and a bunch of local chain stores. And again, nothing. I don’t understand it. Is it because I appear overqualified to work in a store? Is it because I’m limited to the hours I can work with my kids, and my husband’s work schedule? I don’t know what more to do.

I got totally discouraged after going to the IRS processing sessions and finding out that they have 300 people being considered for 50 jobs. There were about 100 people just at the session I went to, and I sat there for 4 hours while they fingerprinted everyone, went over a mountain of forms we had to complete, and they checked everyone’s forms to make sure they were filled out correctly. They have to do federal, state, and local background checks on all 300 people, run the fingerprints through, and audit everyone’s past 3 years tax returns. They said it’ll take two to three weeks, and after that they’ll contact anyone who passes to take a telephone assessment test (mock customer service phone call). After that, based on the results of the test and scores from the online assessment everyone had to take when they first applied for the job, they’ll make hiring decisions.

I’m just getting discouraged now because it’s been a little over two weeks and I haven’t heard anything back yet. I don’t have any reason not to pass the background check. I’ve never committed any crimes, or cheated on my taxes, but I still can’t help but be anxious. I’m so unbelievably depressed over my job situation.

It’s been a horrible, horrible, month financially. My husband has been working 6 days a week and we still are barely managing financially. After he pays the rent, we have $500-$600 left to cover groceries, utility bills, auto insurance, auto loan, gas for my husband to get to work, and prescriptions. It just doesn’t work. We had to pay our rent out of my husband’s first check of the month in August, and it took his entire check. Every penny of it. We couldn’t even go grocery shopping. I ended up having to swallow my pride and go to hunger center to get food for the kids. We’re fortunate to have in the suburb where we live. As a parent, it was the absolute worst feeling in the world to have my kids hungry and worried about what they were going to eat, and not being able to go to the store just to buy some food. I’m praying we don’t ever have to go through that again.

I told my husband if I didn’t have any education or work experience, I wouldn’t feel so bad, because at least I could go back to school and get some skills to get a job, but what’s wrong with me that I have a college degree, that I have years of work experience, and I can’t even get a job as a secretary or a cashier, so I can feed my kids? The past few weeks were terrible trying to scrape together money to feed the kids. My family tried to help me out when they could, but everyone in my family is struggling financially with different things to, so they couldn’t do much. My husband’s best friend lent him some money, which helped a little. My husband used to DJ parties on the side, so he has some musical equipment. He ended up taking a $500 mixer to the pawn shop to get some money for groceries. They gave him $40. I felt so bad that he had to do that. My husband's birthday was on August 15th, and I couldn't afford to do anything for his birthday. No special dinner at home. No dinner out. No presents. I couldn't even afford a few bucks to buy a cake mix and frosting. I felt so bad about it.

On top of all that, I had no home phone or Internet service for 3 weeks. We just couldn’t afford to keep up with all of our bills, and so the phone and Internet had to go temporarily. We have cell phones (a necessity with my husband working nights – there’s no other way to contact him at work except by cell phone) so at least we had some phone service, but it was awful having no Internet service. I felt so cut off from the world. It’s next to impossible to look for work anymore or apply for jobs without Internet service. Even stores want you to apply online. I listed my cell phone along with my home phone on my resume, cover letters, and any applications I filled out prior to my home phone being off, but now I’m worried if anyone employers tried to call me, found my home phone off, and didn’t bother to call my cell phone.

My husband finally got his second paycheck for August this week, I got some a small refund of excess grant/loan funds from my graduate school program (I’m working on an MPA through an online program with the University of Texas at Arlington – their state university system), and some friends of my niece who are getting married gave my husband $350 to DJ their wedding. It was a huge relief to finally be able to go grocery shopping, and buy the kids their school supplies and uniforms and get their asthma and allergy prescriptions refilled. The kids started back to school on Thursday. My daughter started 5th grade, and my son started kindergarten. I was afraid we wouldn’t have any money in time to get the stuff they needed to school, but fortunately we did.

I was able to pay our home phone and Internet bill on Monday, but it took the phone company (I have Internet service through them) until Wednesday to turn the Internet back on, since they had to put it through as a new order. It seems like one thing goes right for us and two other things go wrong. I swear, not more than 5 minutes after my Internet service came back on, our TV in the living room broke. The circuit board blew, and the whole thing reeked like smoke. Granted it was a cheap TV - a small 19 inch that we paid about $120 for, but still, it was barely a year and half old! Our TV before that, a 32 inch GE, lasted for 12 years before the picture tube died. Our remaining TV (and it's going to be our remaining one until I get another job) is a tiny twenty-year old 14 inch TV in our bedr4oom that my husband found a few years ago. But hey, at least it still works.

I'm convinced, just absolutely convinced that everything is made cheaply anymore, and made with functional obsolescence built right in, so the consumer is forced to replace everything frequently - appliances, cars, houses, everything. As luck would have it, not only did our TV go, but our washing machine is nearly gone too. It's a 6 year old Kenmore up and down washer/dryer set (the kind that are made for apartments and condos). The set wasn't cheap - we paid $975 for it, and it's a pretty basic set, but it was all we could find that would fit in the condo we lived in when we bought it. We've had nothing but problems with it since we bought it. We've gone through multiple belts, a new washtub, on and on, and spent at least $500 in repairs on it over the years. Now it barely agitates, and won't spin at all, so I have to run clothes through 2-3 drying cycles to get them to dry, since they come out of the washer sopping wet. My husband took the washer apart, and found out that the ball bearings are shot. It would cost as much as a new set to get them replaced. So much for that. My youngest sister offered to give me her old washer from her apartment where she lived before getting married (her husband owns a house and already had all the appliances he needed). Thank God for that, or we'd be heading to the laundromat every day (a huge hassle with laundry for a family of 4), not to mention expensive. But, am I right? Is everything made cheaply anymore?

Now that the kids are in school, and I don’t need to pay for daycare for them if I find a job, I feel even more pressure to find a job. I don’t even know where to apply anymore. It feels like I’m either overqualified or underqualified for everything. There are tons of lower-paying secretarial/administrative jobs, but when I apply for those, I don’t even get so much as an interview.

I applied for a job requiring a degree with a local nonprofit organization a few weeks ago. It’s a job requiring a degree, and one very similar to what I was doing at my last job. I saw this particular job open months ago, applied, and never heard back from them. When it came open again, I reapplied, and they called my cell phone over a week ago for a phone interview. The asked me how much I was making at my last job, I told them, they said this job wouldn’t be paying as much (about a $5,000-$8,000 a year pay cut), and asked me if I would still be interested in it. I told them yes (at this point I can’t afford to be choosy about how much a job pays), they sounded surprised, and said they would call people for in-person interviews in a few days. Well, that was over a week ago, and I haven’t heard anything more from them.

I desperately need a job. Sure I’d love to have a job paying at least what I made at my old one, but I’ll take pretty much anything at this point, but it seems like all employers see is “overqualified” and won’t consider me. It seems like the only job growth here in the Cleveland area is lower-paying jobs no one will consider me for, or jobs in the legal or medical fields, that I won’t be considered for (I’ve tried) because I don’t have experience in those fields. It’s a great time to be a legal secretary or paralegal (I see tons of law offices hiring for paralegals with experience in debt collection or foreclosures – no surprise with Cleveland being one of the poorest cities in the country, and having among the highest foreclosure rate in the country), and a great time to have any skills in the medical field (because if we have nothing else, at least we have two major hospital systems here in Cleveland).

I spent 10 years (off and on) working on my bachelor’s degree (between working full-time, having kids, dealing with family health problems, etc) and sometimes I feel like I wasted my time, like I’d have been better off just going through some kind of technical training in the medical field or legal field or something. At least I’d be employed right now. It’s frustrating and depressing. Honestly if I didn’t have kids (because of not wanting to move them away from my family) I’d leave the state tomorrow. It seems like there’s nothing around here for college graduates.

About the only good thing that’s happened lately is my husband finished his welding class. It was a long 6 weeks. Between his work and school schedule, and lack of money, we’ve done nothing fun all summer. I’m not upset about not being able to take a vacation – even when we both were working, we could rarely afford vacations. But, I’m sad that summer is pretty much over and we haven’t been able to even do so much as take the kids to the zoo, or a drive-in movie or an amusement park. We couldn’t even do much of any free stuff, like go to the library, because I couldn’t even afford to scrape together a few dollars for bus fare to get there. My daughter was actually excited to go back to school this week, because she was so bored at home, and that made me feel terrible. I love my kids, but I got burned out being home with them everything single day too, with my husband not around to help, between his work and school schedules, and no time to myself at all.

Pretty much all the kids have done all summer is play with other kids on the street. Most of the bratty kids stopped coming around my house after I told them they’re not welcome here if they’re going to be rude to my kids and start fights with them, but that little brat “M” has really gotten on my nerves. Last weekend she rode her bike down to my house, and started harassing Bethany right in our backyard. When Bethany came in to tell me, she left before I could say anything to her. Bethany left to walk down to her a different friend’s house down the street. She has to pass M’s house on the way, and M and a bunch of other girls stood on the sidewalk, blocked Bethany’s way, and started threatening her, saying they were going to beat her up. Bethany came home crying and told me, and I walked back down there with her. Some of the kids had gone home, but a few, including M were standing in front of her house, and had the nerve to tell me and Bethany we couldn’t’ walk past. The hell with that. I told them it’s a public sidewalk, and we most certainly are allowed to walk past. I walked with Bethany to her friend’s house, and was talking to her friend’s mom for a while.

When we went home, M’s mom and dad were outside, and the mom told me I’m not allowed to speak to her daughter! Excuse me?! I told her your daughter has no right to tell me where I can and can’t walk. The mom had a nasty attitude and told I still can’t talk to her daughter, and to come to her if my daughter has a problem with hers! No, it’s not Bethany causing the problems; it’s her little brat of a kid who won’t leave Bethany alone. Maybe if the mother actually kept an eye on her daughter, she’d see how she actually acts. I told my husband if that kid comes back in our yard again harassing Bethany, I sure will have something to say to her, and if she or any of the other girls lays a hand on Bethany, I’m calling the police. I’ve had enough of these kids thinking they own the neighborhood and have to listen to any adults. My husband said M is lucky this isn’t the 1970’s, because back then, some old lady down the street would take her aside and spank her, and drag her back home to her mom. I think he’s right. When I was growing up back in the 70’s, adults didn’t hesitate to call kids out if they were doing something wrong.

Well, I guess that’s about it. I don’t really have any crochet projects to show. Between worrying about finding a job, being broke, and dealing with the food situation, I couldn’t concentrate on crocheting anything. I might have something to post soon though.

No Respect

2008-07-30T02:12:00.005-04:00

Is is just me, or has parents disciplining their kids and teaching them to respect adults fallen by the wayside anymore?

Maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion, but something has really been bothering me lately. Since my kids are home for summer, they've been spending a lot of time playing with other kids on our street, mostly all girls. A couple of times they have had problems with a few of the kids. There's one girl, about 9 (I'll call her "M") who I particularly don't like. She's been mean to Bethany multiple times, calling her names, criticizing her, and yelling at her.

A few weekends ago, M had the nerve to come down to my house, get rude with with my daughter, and then push my son (who's only 5) because he accidentally bumped into her on his tricycle. After I told I wasn't going to allow any pushing, she left.

A few days later, she came back over our house, rang the doorbell, and when Bethany answered the door, asked if Bethany could bring our wagon out (we have an old plastic wagon the kids like to pull each other around in). When Bethany told her (not rudely) that she wasn't going out right now, M, stuck her tongue out at Bethany, and slammed my door! She came back about 15 minutes later, and I answered the door, and told her Bethany wasn't coming out right now, and that I'd appreciate it if she wouldn't come by my house being rude to my kid, and slamming my door.

The kids and I left a little while later to walk to the corner store, and while we were gone, M came over with her mother, and asked my husband what was going on. My husband told her Bethany's had problems with M, and she just stood there, and looked at her mom like my husband was lying. He told M's mom she should go to talk to some of the other parents in the neighborhood, because other parents have told us M is also nasty to their kids.

Now, today my kids were playing outside in my backyard with some girls from the neighborhood, and Bethany asked if they could on our screened porch. I told them OK, but to keep the noise down, because the inside door to the porch is right across the hall from our bedroom, where my husband was sleeping after having worked all night and then gone to school. Bethany told the girls she was playing with (about 8 total) that they all couldn't be on the porch at the same time, because her dad was sleeping. Apparently some of them (including M) got mad at her, told her to shut up, and ganged up on her, yelling at her and Dominic, calling them names, and being outright nasty.

I heard Bethany sobbing, came to see what was going on, and found Dominic trying to defend her, and the girls still screaming at Bethany. I told them to go home, and that they're not allowed to come by my house, being mean and rude to my kids, and the kids started arguing with me, and one of the girls tried to tell me that Bethany was calling them "bitches".

Now, I'm not one of those parents who thinks my kids walk on water and never do any wrong, but my daughter does not swear. I have never heard her utter a single swear word, ever. The only swear word my kids have ever heard come out of my mouth in front of them is "damn", and whenever Bethany has heard me say it, she tells me I shouldn't use words like that. Now, I'm supposed to believe she called those girls bitches??? Oh, and then to make matters worse, Bethany told me when she told the girls not to all go on the porch at one time, and they started the fight with her, she said she was going to have me come out there, and a few of the girls told her so what, they don't have to listen to me!

Don't have to listen to me?! An adult? On MY property? Now mind you, these girls range in age from about 4 to 10 at the oldest, and are already that disrespectful of adults?! I'm sorry, I'm just really bothered by this. It makes me wonder what kind of mentality their parents have, if the kids are that ill-mannered. I don't care who Bethany and Dominic play with, as long as the kids are polite and behave themselves. But, I can't help but wonder if I did the right thing by intervening when those kids were picking on Bethany and Dominic, or if I should have let them work it out on their own?

What do you think?

In any case, I'm proud of my little Dominic for standing up for his sister. Even though they squabble a lot, I know they still love each other. Both of my kids take Singulair tablets daily for their allergies and asthma, both pediatric versions, but Bethany's pills are 6mg, for ages 6-12, and Dominic's are 5mg for ages 2-5. Well, when we were getting ready for bed, I was tired and distracted and accidentally gave Dominic one of Bethany's pills. I didn't realize it until I was throwing away Bethany's empty pill package, and she noticed (she remembered she had one pill left after taking her pill that evening). She was so worried about Dominic she couldn't fall asleep until I called the poison control hotline, and they said he would be fine. They said a kid would have to take a dozen of the pills at once before having any adverse effects. That make me feel pretty proud that Bethany was that concerned for her little brother.

Oh well. I've got to get going to bed. Enough griping for one night (er, early morning)!

Something Cool!

2008-07-26T13:28:00.003-04:00

No, not a new job (I wish!), but still something cool...

I got an email from Amazon.com the other day inviting me to participate in their new "Vine" program. Here's what it said:

Greetings from Amazon.com!

As one of our most valued customer reviewers, we would like to offer you a special invitation to join an exciting new Amazon program called Amazon Vine. As a member of this exclusive community, you will have access to pre-release and new products across all Amazon categories, and the opportunity to be among the very first to review them. There is no cost to you to participate or to receive Vine products. We are simply asking for your time in writing reviews for the products you select from the program.

Basically I get an email newsletter every month, with new products I can review, I get to pick up to two products, they send them to me for free, I review them, and I get to keep them when I'm done! I got my first newsletter yesterday, and picked out two nonfiction books to review (I mostly read nonfiction). Hopefully one of the newsletters will include some crochet books too.

I'm pretty excited - I love to read, and what could be better than getting new books for free?!

Jobless in Cleveland

2008-07-15T23:42:00.000-04:00

Well, as this post title states, I’m still jobless. July 9th marked 3 months since I lost my job. I never expected to be out of work this long. I’m so frustrated right now I could scream.

In three months, I’ve had a total of two “real” interviews (I’m not counting the two temp agency interviews I had, which were essentially useless, since neither could find me a job). I had a brief phone interview on Friday for a temp job with a major company here in the Cleveland area, and the lady I spoke with said they would start calling people this week for in-person interviews, but I haven’t gotten a call. Of course. Sometimes I feel like I have a giant, blinking “Do not hire!” sign floating above my head. I know the economy is bad right now, and extremely bad in the Cleveland area, but still, I can’t help but take my not being able to find a job personally.

About the only potential prospect I have for a job right is a position I applied for with the IRS a few weeks ago. It’s a contact representative (customer service) job It’s not my ideal job – a friend of mine works in the same position, and said it’s very stressful – she’s basically confined to her desk 8 hours a day answering phone calls from taxpayers, and new employees are on probation for a year. The pay is also terrible for a job requiring a degree – only about $29,000 a year to start At the same time though, an IRS job is about as stable as it gets – it’s not like the Iris is going to go out of business. Plus, employees get two cost of living pay increases a year, free bus passes (a good deal with a monthly bus pass going up to $90 this fall) and help paying back any federal student loans the employee has.

I got an email from the IRS on Saturday saying that based on my application; they found me tentatively qualified for the position. They’re supposed to be sending me a packet of forms to fill out, and I’m scheduled for a “processing session” (whatever that is) and fingerprinting on August 6th. That of course, doesn’t mean I have the job. I have to go through a security clearance and background check. I’m convinced that I didn’t get the nonprofit job because of something my old boss probably said, so who knows what will happen with the IRS job.

Even if I do get the IRS job, there’s still a problem because the job doesn’t start until October – it’s a seasonal job – October through June. I can’t afford to be out of work until October. I can’t even afford to be out of work right now.

I feel like my husband and I have just been drowning financially since I’ve been out of work. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Our minivan, which so far has held up great for a 7 year old vehicle, decided not to start one day last week when my husband was getting ready to leave for his welding class. Not only was the battery completely dead, but he found out while getting the battery replaced that the alternator was nearly dead as well. We ended up with $400 in repairs which we could barely afford, and which put us behind on other bills. Right after that, the radio decided to stop working, and the air conditioner started acting up, even after being recharged. OK, so no radio and minimally functioning air conditioning isn’t’ the end of the world, but I’m afraid it means something else major is wrong with the van. We still have about a year left on the auto loan, and I’m hoping and praying that the van will hold up at least until the loan is paid off.

On top of that, I just spent $100 in the past week getting my kids’ asthma and allergy medications, and my husband’s diabetes medications refilled. I still don’t even have any medical insurance for myself. A family medical plan is just too expensive now with me not working, so only my husband and kids are on his medical insurance for now.

In the meantime, I have no idea what I’m going to do if I don’t find another job soon. My kids start back to school next month, and the way things are going, I have no idea how I’m even going to afford to buy their school supplies, and uniforms (my daughter) and school clothes (my son – kindergarteners at their school don’t wear uniforms).

I’d take anything right about now, even a job at Wal-Mart, but between my husband working nights, being at school all day, and basically sleeping nearly all the rest of the time he’s at home, leaving me entirely responsible for the kids, I’d be so limited as to the hours I could work. I can’t work early mornings. I can’t work evenings. I can’t work nights. I can’t even work weekends, because weekends are the only time my husband really has to catch up on his sleep. I can’t see any store being interested in hiring someone who is limited to working Monday-Friday between about 9AM and 4-5PM.

And to make matters worse, if I do go back to work now, I’ll have to put the kids in summer camp/daycare full time, which they wouldn’t mind, but which I can’t see being able to afford on what Wal-Mart or any store would pay. Full-time summer camp for my kids (at the daycare where my son went to preschool) is nearly $1,100 a month for two kids (with a sibling discount), and that’s actually on the low end for summer camps in the area. Even putting them in part time would barely be cheaper. I’m afraid even I took a job at Wal-Mart full-time, I’d only make enough to cover daycare, let alone any bills. And what’s even more frustrating is I don’t even have any family members who can help out with child care. My mother will watch my kids on occasion, but being nearly 70, and not in the best of help, she can’t handle watching them full-time.

I’m just feeling pretty overwhelmed right now.

Well, in other news, I finished a few crochet projects. The first is a top I crocheted from Cotton-Ease. I had two skeins of Strawberry Cream Cotton-Ease in my stash, and wanted to use them for something. I thought about crocheting a top for myself, and came up with this.

It ended up only taking a skein and a half of the Strawberry Cream, and a skein and a half of Snow (white). I used a J hook. For the top, I modified a free tunic pattern from Lion Brand (cropped it and added an increase row at the bottom) and for the bottom I used a stitch from a stitch dictionary. The top was crocheted as two seperate pieces, which I sewed together, then I crocheted the bottom in rounds. I also added a crocheted flower (can’t you tell I love crocheted flowers? I’m always sticking them on everything!). I don’t think it came out too bad for the first clothing item I’ve made for myself.

The second thing I made is an S&B Fat Bottom Bag for my second PIF gift. It was an easy pattern to follow, but I’m disappointed with how small it came out. I added extra rows, and used a J hook (instead of the recommended I), but it still came out a lot smaller than the one in the book. I used two skeins of Lily Sugar N’Cream. I got the felted flower from a local craft store chain, Pat Catan’s. I’ve had the materials for the bag for months, but just never got around to working on it until now. The ribbon is black & white polka dotted (it came out fuzzy in the photo).

I also crocheted something for Katrina, for her new baby, but I won’t post a photo until I have a chance to send it to her (don’t want to ruin the surprise). It seems like I’ve barely had 5 minutes to get anything done with my kids home for the summer.

I’ve been trying to find cheap things to do with them to keep them occupied. Last Friday we went to the beach/park with my mom, my sister-in-law, Gehan, and her kids. I didn’t plan on letting my kids go in the water, because they didn’t have their bathing suits with them, but I gave in, and they went in clothes and all. My sister in law had just gotten back from a trip to Florida to visit family, and said after she saw the ocean, it ruined the lake (Lake Erie) for her (because the lake looks so dirty in comparison). My thoughts exactly, ! Many years ago, before we had kids, my husband and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas and Key West, and I agree – the lake just isn’t the same after seeing the ocean. Here’s some pictures from the beach:Of course I had to include one of my baby niece, Jenna. I think she just gets cuter every time I see her! It’s funny, she was nearly bald last time I saw her, on Memorial Day, and now she has almost enough hair for some clips.

After we went to the beach, my niece Rosie asked her mom to let Bethany spend the night at their house, and she ended up staying over both Friday and Saturday night. Gehan didn’t mind, because she said it kept Rosie out of her hair, and stopped her from squabbling with her brothers (three older and one younger - oldest is stationed out of state in the Air Force). My husband and I went to pick up Bethany on Sunday, and meant to only stay for a few minutes, but ended up staying for a couple of hours talking to Gehan and my brother. I always enjoy going over their house, and our kids have so much fun together

My Dominic whined the whole time Bethany was gone that he missed her and wanted to come home, but I think he was more upset that he didn’t get to sleepover his cousin’s house. Gehan already ahs 5 kids to deal with, so I couldn’t expect her to have Dominic spend the night too, not to mention that he’s still little enough to need a lot of supervision. He gets so upset when he’s not old enough to do things that Bethany can. I know it’s frustrating for him.

He and Bethany have been driving each other crazy since they’re home everyday, so I took them to the park yesterday to get them out of the house. Today we went to the pool. We’re fortunate that the suburb we live in has a great public pool, but like everything in the suburbs, it’s not free, so we can’t go too often. Plus, it’s a hassle to get to from my house with my not being able to drive. The only options are to take two busses (a regular bus and a neighborhood “community circulator” bus) or to walk about a mile and hop on the circulator bus. We ended up doing the latter, to save money, and because the regular busses run so infrequently during the afternoons. The walk was OK for me and my daughter, but my son got tired and crabby.

I know I really need to learn how to drive, and with me being out of work right now, I’d actually have time for it, but the problem is having someone to teach me. My husband doesn’t have time, and I couldn’t practice with our minivan anyway – I’m listed on the insurance policy since we’re married, but because I don’t have driver’s license, if I drove the van, and had an accident, it wouldn’t be covered. I’d gladly pay for driving lessons through a company if I could afford it, but I just have too many other bills to worry about right now.

The kids had at lot of fun at the pool – my daughter got to see her best friend, who was there with her summer camp class (the kids go swimming every afternoon), and they got to play together for a while. My son loves the interactive splash area at the pool – there’s a shallow-water splash area for littler kids with slides, bridges, and built in water guns and sprinklers.

Between the beach on Friday and the pool today, I ended up with two nasty sunburns on my arms, neck, ears, shoulders, and face. I’m convinced that sunblocks are useless (at least for people with pale Irish skin), because no matter how much I glob on (and reapply), I’ve never made it through a visit to a park, beach, or pool without a sunburn. I think about that, all the horrible sunburns I got as a kid while spending hours at the pool every day during he summer – ones so bad that the top layer of skin on my nose would just peel right off, and one of my Irish grandmothers having had skin cancer, and the potential for skin cancer just scares the crap out of me. At least my kids are dark enough that they very rarely sunburn (although I do put sunblock on them anyway).

Well, thanks everyone for your encouragement about my job situation. I’m hoping and praying things get better soon. I hope everyone is having a good summer so far.

Discouraged

2008-06-29T15:17:00.004-04:00

Well, I still haven't heard anything from the nonprofit organization about that job. : ( I called the supervisor last Monday, and left a message for her, but she hasn't called me back yet. When I called, her number rang once and then went straight to voice mail, and when I called again on Tuesday (I didn't leave a message that time) it did the same thing, so I'm hoping she was just on vacation or out of town last week (she travels a lot for her job).

Nevertheless, I'm discouraged because I talked to another lady I listed for a reference, and she told me no one from the organization has contacted her for a reference. It appears then that the organization only contacted my last job (I listed one of my former coworkers, and the HR department). That was on June 17th, and now it's almost July, so I think things aren't looking too good as far as me getting the job. Oh well. I've seen a few other job openings elsewhere that look promising, so I've been applying for other jobs. I just need to find something quickly.

I finally got my check for the grants proposal project, so my kids and I went to the movies yesterday. We're fortunate to have a movie theater within walking distance of our house. We went to see Wall-E. It was a cute movie, although it did take awhile to get to the point. The kids really liked it though, and they were excited because they each got a free Wall-E watch and some trading cards with their tickets.

I also sold a textbook on Ebay, so I used the money to order some yarn online from Knitting-Warehouse.com. I bought the last ball of TLC Cotton Plus I need to finish my Cupcake sweater, so I'm going to try to finish it this week and post pictures. While looking for yarn on Knitting-Warehouse, I saw that they have a bunch of pretty new yarns: Red Heart Collage Yarn, Red Heart Designer Sport Yarn, Red Heart Heart & Sole yarn (sock yarn - good for you knitters out there!), Red Heart Soft Baby Steps Yarn, and Red Heart Zoomy Yarn. Here's a link- http://store.knitting-warehouse.com/yarn-coats-red-heart.html (I couldn't get the one-word link to work right).

Anyway, thank you everyone who left such kind comments in response to my post last week. My husband started his welding classes last Monday. They're going well, but he's pretty much been sleeping all the time when he's home. I'll be glad when the classes are done.

Broke, Bored, and Bummed

2008-06-21T23:48:00.007-04:00

Well, the title of this post pretty much describes how I’ve been feeling for the past couple of weeks. Broke because trying to live off one income (my husband’s) is next to impossible, bored because between being broke and my husband’s night shift work schedule, we either never have the time or money to do anything, and bummed because I’m frustrated with being unemployed.

The nonprofit organization I was doing the grants proposal for decided at the last minute not to pursue it. I’ll still get paid for the time I spent working on it, but now I’m just waiting to get paid. I sent them an invoice last week, but their accountant is on vacation this week, so I won’t get the check until someone time next week.

In the meantime, I have bills piling up and need to buy groceries and get my kids’ asthma/allergy medications refilled. Did I mention that I hate not having a job? My husband’s been working as much overtime as he can at his job, but we just can’t live off one income, especially with gas and food prices skyrocketing. Gas alone is killing us, with my husband driving nearly 50 miles round trip to work 6 days a week. And then I read that food prices are expected to go up even more with the floods in Iowa and Missouri destroying so many crops.

One of my former coworkers emailed me last Monday, and told me someone from the nonprofit organization (one of the women I interviewed with) called her for a reference for the permanent position I interviewed for (the research and planning associate). She gave them a good one. Everyone I’ve mentioned it to thinks it’s a good sign, that they’re checking my references, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up in case I don’t get the job. I'm still keeping an eye out for other jobs I'm qualified for in the meantime too.

I told my husband if I don’t get a job offer in the next week or so, that I’m just going to have to take any job I can find, even if it’s just something at Wal-Mart, because we need to have some other income coming in. It’s the bills, and also just never having any money to do anything with the kids. Bethany tells me about her friends and classmates that go on great vacations every year with their families – cruises, trips to Europe, trips to the ocean, to Disney World, and here I am so damn broke that I can’t even afford to take my kids to the movies or to an amusement park, and it makes me feel like just a lousy mom.

A few weeks ago at preschool, Dominic’s class had “bike day” where the kids can bring in their bikes and get to ride them in the playground. I felt horrible because my son only has a tricycle, that he outgrew last summer, and so he didn’t have a bike to bring in. He’s been asking me for a “big bike” with training wheels, and I feel so terrible not even being able to afford to get him one. I told him I’d buy him a new bike when I get another job, and nearly every day he asks if I have a job yet, and it hurts to have to tell him no, because he gets so disappointed.

On top of worrying about my job situation, I’ve just been totally overwhelmed with my husband working nights. The schedule has him so exhausted that he spends 90% of his time at home sleeping, and I feel like I barely have five minutes to even talk to him anymore. And things are going to get worse because he’s going to start welding school at Lincoln Electric on Monday. He’s going to work his night shift, get home at 7, and then have to rush out of the door about half an hour later to go to classes. He won’t get home until about 4, and then he has to be back at work at 10:30, so that barely even leaves him time to sleep, let alone time to see me or the kids. The classes don’t end until the first week of August, so by the time he’s done with classes, it'll almost be time for the kids to go back to school. On top of that, I’m worried about how he’s going to manage on so little sleep. He’s not exactly young anymore – he’s 42, and he’s diabetic, and doesn’t feel good some days, so I just hope he’ll be OK health wise with the lack of sleep.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful that my husband has the opportunity to go to school – his company is paying for the welding classes, and once he finishes he’ll have the opportunity to move into a full-time welding position and make more money, but with the work and school schedule, it’ll be impossible to have any kind of normal family life. I’m tired of sleeping alone every night, tired of not having any help with the kids, and tired of missing my husband. I’m not mad at him, just overwhelmed.

The kids spent the night at Grandma’s (my mom) house last night, with some of their cousins, my sister Desiree’s 11 and 4 year old daughters, and 6 year old son. Desiree and her husband were going to some event downtown and then spending the night at a hotel, so my mom asked if I wanted to bring my kids over too.

My husband and I very, very rarely go anywhere by ourselves without the kids, so I’d have loved to have gone out to eat or to a movie or something, but between us being broke, and him being exhausted, we just stayed home. He fell asleep early, and I stayed up later crocheting and watching TV. Some exciting Friday night, huh? The kids had fun at Grandma’s though. They ate a ton of junk food, had a water balloon fight outside, watched a movie, and all fell asleep together on the living room floor. That was Dominic’s first time spending the night away from home, but he did well. Speaking of kids, that reminds me that I have a new picture of my baby niece, Jenna. She's 5 months old now.

That's me feeding her at my brother Joe's (her dad) house on Memorial Day. Isn't she cute?! I told Joe that he and Jenna have the same hairdo (because she's bald, and he's losing his hair) ha, ha!

About the only good thing that’s happened lately is that I got a letter from the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland saying that they awarded me a $500 grant towards Bethany’s tuition for the upcoming school year. I applied for assistance before I lost my job, and initially wasn’t awarded anything. Parents who don’t receive any assistance can reapply if their financial situation changes (assuming grant funds are still available) so I reapplied and surprisingly got something. The tuition starts at $4,150 for non parishioners, but parents can get money off for doing volunteer work at the school, participating in fundraising, etc, so between those, and the $500, that knocks her tuition down to $2,915 (plus all the various fees). Still a lot of money, but every little bit helps.

Fortunately I won’t have to pay any tuition for Dominic. He qualifies for an Ohio EdChoice scholarship/voucher because the public elementary school he would be assigned to for kindergarten (if I sent him to public school) is on the No Child Left Behind list of persistently failing schools. I wish I could get a voucher for Bethany too, but it’s only for incoming kindergarten students or students who have been enrolled at a charter school or a failing public school for at least a year. I’m not complaining though, because if not for Dominic getting the voucher, I couldn’t afford to have two kids in Catholic school.

I also got a nice surprise a few weeks ago when a fellow Clevelander and blogging friend Gretchen sent me a box full of yarn! She sent me 3 skeins of Simply Soft Brites in Berry Blue and white, and 4 skeins of Cotton-Ease in the discontinued Candy Blue color. I got a cute handmade card (decorated by her 4 year old daughter) too.

I used some of the Simply Soft to crochet a poncho for my daughter (ignore her hair – I didn’t have a chance to brush it before I took the picture). The pattern I used is a free Lacy Shells Poncho from Chelle of Luv to Crochet. She has some beautiful patterns. This pattern is great because it has instructions on how to adjust it to fit an infant, child or adult. I want to make one for myself in pink. My daughter decided that she doesn’t like pink anymore, but at least I can still make pink stuff for myself. I started a Stitch N’ Bitch “Cupcake” sweater for myself about a month ago, with some hot pink TLC Cotton Plus from my stash (that pattern is a mess – more on that later), but I ran out before I could make the second sleeve. : ( Oh well. When I get another job, I’ll have to buy another skein to do the second sleeve.

Quick Update

2008-06-02T19:11:00.005-04:00

Just a quick update on a few things...

My interview last Wednesday for the research & planning associate position with the nonprofit health system thankfully went really well. Before the interview, I made a list of questions I thought I might be asked, along with answers, and also a list of questions I wanted to ask. Being prepared beforehand made me a lot less nervous. The interview was a group one (I was interviewed by 3 women), but it was rather informal, which also helped. Interestingly, I wasn't even asked why I left my last job. I had an answer prepared, but didn't even need to use it. The supervisor said that a number of questions I asked were "excellent", so that's a good sign.

Overall, I'm very excited about the position. It's one in which I could really put my education to use, and one in which I will have lots of opportunity to write, which unfortunately I didn't get to do enough at previous jobs. I had to submit a PowerPoint presentation I've done (luckily I still had one that I did for an undergraduate college class), and I have to complete a writing exercise.

Apparently I already made a good impression with my writing skills however (through my cover letter, thank you letter and Power Point presentation), because on Friday I received a phone call from a lady who is the head of the department, saying that the supervisor told her I have strong writing skills, and asking if I have any grants writing experience. It just so happens that I took a grants writing class in college, and I have experience reviewing grants proposals from my volunteer position with the United Way. I was offered a chance to help put together a major grants proposal for the organization.

I'll be working mostly from home, about 60-80 hours over the course of the next two weeks, and it pays $25.00 an hour. For 80 hours of work, that's $2,000 - what great timing with me being out of work! Of course I said yes, I would love to help, and I got started on the project today. The project seems a bit overwhelming right now, but I have technical assistance from a contract grants writer who has helped with many proposals for the organization, and I think he's going to be very helpful.

I have been working on a few crochet projects, but they're going to have to take a backseat to this grants project, and my summer grad school class which began last week (I'm taking an urban politics class). So, if I'm AWOL for a while. you'll know where I am!

Thank you to everyone for your kind words and encouragement about the interview and my job situation. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get the position.

Little Things

2008-05-24T22:18:00.026-04:00

I'm back . I know I've been AWOL for a while. I have been crocheting a little lately, but I just haven't felt like updating my blog. I've been feeling down in the dumps about my job situation, and have had a hard time motivating myself to do much.

I do have a job interview coming up on Wednesday. It's for a Research & Planning Associate with a Catholic nonprofit grants-making foundation in downtown Cleveland. I'm nervous though - nervous about how to explain why I lost my last job, and nervous because I found out that it's going to be a group interview. I hate group interviews! Regular one on one interviews make me nervous enough, but interviews with more than one person is even worse. I hate sitting at a conference table with a bunch of people all staring at me.

And what do I say about why I lost my last job? Do I say the truth, that it was due to a personality conflict between me and my old boss, but then risk looking like I can't get along with people (I think I'm an easy person to get along with, even if I am generally quiet)? Do I say that the job just wasn't a good fit (but the Research & Planning Associate has a lot of similarities to my last job, and I don't want to look like I'm not qualified for it)?

All I know is I really, really want this job. Out of all the jobs I've applied for since losing my job, this is the one I want the most. It has everything I want in a job - it requires a degree, it's in a field directly related to both my bachelor's and my soon-to-be had master's, it's with a nonprofit organization, I have the necessary skills for it, and best of all, I would be working for an organization that deals with issues about which I am passionate and knowledgeable - affordable housing, healthcare accessibility, and educational disparities. I'll be seriously heartbroken if I don't get this job.

Now on to some lighter stuff. I finished my sister's wedding shawl a few days before her wedding, and gave it to her the day before her wedding. I was worried that the blue shade I chose would be a lot lighter than the trim on her dress, but the yarn actually wasn't too far off. My sister loved the color and the sparkle of the yarn. Here's the completed shawl:

I know the photos are crappy - my photos I take inside don't come out well between the indoor lighting (most of the rooms in my house have ceiling lights) and the flash on the camera (which I don't know how to turn off). I was going to weave ribbon through the borders on the shawl, but I ran out before I got to the third side, so I just took it out and tied ribbons on each corner of the shawl instead. The shawl took 8 balls of Patons Katrina yarn in Dusk.

Other than the shawl, I had mainly been working on some items for the fundraising auction for my daughter's school band. In addition to the hats I previously posted, I had crocheted a really cute baby wrap sweater, using the "Mini Wrap Sweater" pattern from the March/April '08 issue of Crochet Magazine (adjusting the measurements to make an infant size). I used Red Heart Soft in Pink for the body, and added a ruffled trim in Chocolate.

I had also crocheted a baby washcloth in Lily Sugar N' Cream Stripes - Baby Stripes, using an "arcade" stitch pattern from the Crochet Stitch Bible. I wrapped the washcloth around a bar of baby soap and tied with a ribbon. I took photos of both the sweater and the washcloth, and left them on my camera. As luck would have it, the same day that I sent the baby stuff with my daughter to school to give to her band teacher, I got ready to download the photos of the sweater and the washcloth to my computer, and realized that my husband had deleted them when he was clearing out old photos from the camera. Argggghhhh! Needless to say I was very upset.

I do have one other item I crocheted for the auction to show however. This is a bib crocheted with DMC Senso (microfiber cotton/acrylic blend) and a G hook.

The pattern is "So Simple Baby Bib" from the August/September '06 issue of Crochet Today. That was my first time working with such thin yarn (it's about a fingering weight) and it was a bit difficult, but I'm proud of myself for managing it, LOL! I added Velcro to the straps for closures after taking the photo.

Oh, and speaking of the band, I almost forgot to mention that Bethany had her spring band concert last Wednesday. The beginning band (4th and 5th graders) did two songs and a few solos. Here are some videos of the songs that included Bethany - the first one is "The Hey Song", and the second one is "Popcorn Prelude".

Next up is a kerchief I crocheted for Bethany, with Strawberry Cream Cotton-Ease and a G hook. The pattern I used is the "Cozy Kerchief" from the book "Cozy Crochet". Bethany talked me into taking her and Dominic to the park today. The park is about a quarter mile down the street from our house, about a 15 minute walk (with kids, because they walk slow), so it's not far, but I've just been feeling like crap lately and haven't felt like walking anywhere (my husband had to work last night so he was sleeping all afternoon and couldn't drive us). My colon became infected and ruptured in 2001, requiring me to have two surgeries and a temporary colostomy, and ever since then, I've had occasional bouts of nausea and stomach pain. This past week has been particularly bad, which worries me, because I lost my medical insurance along with my job, and the last thing I need right now is to end up hospitalized with no insurance. My husband was able to get insurance for the kids through his job (a must with both of them having asthma and allergies and being on daily medications) but with me not working, the premiums for entire family coverage are just too high.

I couldn't say no to walking down to the park though, when my daughter told me that walking is good exercise, and that it's better for the Earth than driving, LOL! I like our lakefront park, because there's always a lot of families with kids there, so my kids always find someone to play with at the playground. When we were walking into the park, my daughter spotted a brown speckled bunny underneath a tree. I couldn't get very close to the bunny without it getting nervous, so I used tried to zoom in with my camera, but the photo came out fuzzy. The last thing I have to show is one of my PIF gifts that I mailed out a few days ago. The recipient, fellow blogger and crafty Clevelander, Gretchen of Lazy Mama Designs, should have gotten it by now, so I think it's safe to post a photo.It's a scarf, crocheted with Moda Dea Vision in "Princess" and a K hook. The pattern is from the book "Get Hooked Again", and the stitch design is called "chevron lace". I love how it came out - the color, the design, everything. I had such a hard time resisting keeping it for myself! Obviously there isn't much need for scarves in Cleveland in May, but in my defense, I finished it about two months ago, when it was still cold. I was just lazy about weaving in the ends, blocking it, and getting it mailed out.

Well, that it for now for finished crochet projects. If you're of the praying type, please pray that my interview goes well, and that I get the job.

Wedding Photos!

2008-05-11T15:19:00.024-04:00

Shauna and Rich

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

Chagrin Valley Athletic Club

Chagrin Falls, OH

It was a beautiful wedding! Everything went really well. It was chilly and windy here in Cleveland on Friday, and chilly, windy and rainy today, but Saturday was 66 degrees, and sunny with a nice breeze - perfect weather for a wedding!

The wedding was outdoors. The bride and bridal party got to walk down a stone path, over a bridge, and past a waterfall and pond. A friend of Shauna's who is a local orchestra played instrumental music (along with a few other musicians she knows) for the ceremony as a gift for Shauna. Our older brother, Brian, walked Shauna down the aisle and gave her away, since our dad is deceased.

All of the kids in the wedding party did really well. Here's my daughter Bethany, junior bridesmaid (10), her cousin Rosie, also 10 (my brother Joe's stepdaughter), and her cousins (my sister Desiree's daughters) Alexis (11), junior bridesmaid, and Kaitlyn (4), flower girl. All of the girls looked so beautiful!

My handsome little man, Dominic. When I first saw him all dressed up in his tux, he looked so grown up that I got tears in my eyes. Shauna did too.
My niece Rosie with her little brother, Mohammed (8).
Shauna was surprised and happy when I made a speech for her and Rich. I normally hate speaking in front of people, and she told me beforehand it would be OK with her if I didn't want to give a speech, but I thought of something great to say, stood up in front of 80+ people and made a speech. It felt good when I got lots of compliments on it.

We had great food and a beautiful cake (ivory with blue hydrangeas). I had a picture of the cake, but it's too fuzzy to post. A friend of Shauna's decorated the reception hall for the wedding as a gift. The DJ was great too - besides being a professional DJ, he is also Shauna's boss's accountant. He made Shauna blush when he read from some emails (I think Rich snuck them to him) Shauna and Rich exchanged after their first date, LOL!

The kids had so much fun at the reception, dancing, eating, and playing with their cousins and siblings. The athletic club was a great place to have a wedding with all the places indoors and out for the kids to run around. Dominic had a lot of fun playing with Alex, the son of one of Shauna's friends. Bethany and her girl cousins loved dancing with Nikki, the daughter of a family friend - Nikki is graduating from college today with her bachelor's in elementary education, and is doing her student teaching in a second grade class, so she's great with kids.

Here's me and Bethany (note to self: stick with strapless bras for halter dresses, LOL!):

And me and Dominic:
Shauna dancing with Dominic:
Shauna and Rich:My husband and I had fun dancing, even though I can't dance worth a lick. My husband is a fabulous dancer though, so my oldest sister, Diane, and her friends (all a little tipsy!) dragged him out on the dance floor to dance with him. Poor guy was one of the few men out there, until some of the other men had a few drinks, and got out there, LOL!

Overall, it was a great day, and I'm thankful and proud to have been in the wedding. I'll post more wedding pictures when I get copies some of the professional photos. In the meantime, here are some short videos from the wedding - my husband was able to take these with our digital camera (they even have sound!) - I think that's pretty cool, LOL!

Whew! Busy Week!

2008-05-11T11:35:00.002-04:00

This was one of those weeks that I'm glad is over. I feel like I barely had 5 minutes to sit down all week.

Monday - My Dominic's kindergarten screening
Tuesday - Second fitting for mine and Bethany's bridesmaid's dresses and final exam for my online grad school class
Wednesday - Interview and tests with another temp agency
Thursday - Interview and tests for the job I applied for at Cleveland State
Friday - Wedding rehearsal and dinner
Saturday - My sister's wedding!
Today - Mother's Day

I'm glad this week is just about over! I'll be posting some wedding photos either later today or tomorrow.

Loom Knitting Books & Booklets for Sale

2008-05-02T11:02:00.015-04:00

FOR VISITORS FROM THE KNIFTY KNITTER YAHOO GROUP:

I have a number of Knifty Knitter booklets and books to sell. I find that I rarely loom knit since I learned how to crochet, so I am clearing out my stash.

If you are interested in buying any of the items, please email me personally through the Yahoo group, as I am on special notice only, and won't receive messages sent to the entire group.

I accept payment via Paypal only. Payment must be recieved within 48 hours after indicating that you wish to purchase an item. I will email you an invoice with payment instructions. Items will ship the next business day after payment clears.

Prices include 1st Class postage.

All items are first-come, first served, and are from a non-smoking home.

Thank you for looking!

KNIFTY KNITTER I, II, & III BOOKLETS - 75 cents each
KNIFTY KNITTER LOOM SERIES USING BERNAT YARNS BOOKLET - $3.00Hard to find item. Has patterns for Golf Club Covers, Hats for the Family, Throw, Shawl, Kitchen Accessories, Holiday Stockings, Ribbed Scarf, Yoga Bag and Child's Flat Top Hat & Scarf.

LOOM CRAFTS WITH KNIFTY KNITTER - $12.00

ISELA PHELPS' LOOM KNITTING PRIMER- $12.00 - SOLD! KNITTING WHEEL FASHIONS - $5.00 - SOLD!Has patterns for Neck Cuff & Belt, Ear Warmer, Sequined Hat, Spiral Hat, Shaggy Dog Hat & Scarf, Mohair Bag, Cotton Bag, Shrug, Wrap, Hat & Shawl. Please note that tis book has some water damage on the bottom corners of a few pages. The pages are all still readable howver.

LEARN TO KNIT ON CIRCLE LOOMS - $7.00 - PENDING

Has patterns for Pleasing Ponchette, At-Home Comfort Socks, Mom & Daughter Bangle Bags, Make it Soft Scarf, Make it Soft Hat, Striped Squares Baby Blanket, Keep-Warm Tubular Scarf, Keep-Warm Hat, and Relaxing Afghan.
LEARN NEW STITCHES ON CIRCLE LOOMS - $7.00 - SOLD

Has patterns for Bordered Scarf, Woven-Top Hat, Pocorn Bobble Hat, Drawstring Purse, Seed Stitch Spa Set, Mobius Shawl, Diamond Lace Shawl, Shell Stich Afghan, Chevron Baby Blanket

A Few Little Things

2008-05-01T08:46:00.004-04:00

Thank you to everyone for your nice comments and suggestions about the wedding expenses - it means a lot to me. My sister offered to let me borrow the money for the dress alterations, and I'm going to sell my collection of loom knitting books (nothing wrong with loom knitting - I just haven't done any since I learned how to crochet) and use the proceeds towards my salon expenses. I have a couple of textbooks I can sell, too.

In crochet-related news, I was looking at the new items on Knitting-Warehouse.com, and saw they have more new yarn/colors posted - Lion Brand, Caron, Lily Sugar N' Cream. I fell in love with these crochet labels though - I think they are just too cute! They have knitting labels too. The crochet labels are going on my wish list of crochet things to buy when I'm working again.

I also found out that Lion Brand has a new yarn blog, Lion Brand Notebook. Check it out here.

Finally, another blog I like, Five Minutes for Mom, is having a Two Weeks of Toys Giveaway - visit their website to enter. I love their giveaways - I actually won a $400 (pink!) Dyson vacumn cleaner through their website last fall. Ironically, I have almost all hardwood floors in my house, but the vacumn cleaner is still great for the carpeted stairs and sunporch and rugs.

Thanks again for everyone's comments and suggestions. I may have some more baby projects for the band basket to post soon.

Baby Hats

2008-04-29T23:33:00.013-04:00

My daughter’s band director sent home a letter the other day saying that the various school bands he works with are going to be auctioning off gift baskets to raise money to reduce the cost of running the band programs. He is asking parents to donate items for the baskets. Bethany’s band is doing a “family game night” themed basket, and I so wanted to crochet one of these fluffy dice floor pillows (from the book “Kooky Crochet” - checked it out from the library), but I don’t have the yarn/materials I would need for it, and I can’t spend any money on yarn while I’m not working.

Parents can also donate items for any other bands’ basket (the money raised all goes to the same place anyway), so I decided to crochet some baby hats with stash yarn for a baby-themed basket. Here’s what I came up with:
What do you think?

I used some patterns from magazines for inspiration, and then heavily modified them. The pink hat is Strawberry Cream Cotton-Ease, and the blue one is Red Heart Soft in Blue Sky, White, and Chocolate. I think the pink hat looks closer to a toddler size, and the blue one is definitely newborn-sized.
When I was pregnant last year, my mom gave me some baby spoons (the coated kind) and a musical rattle – obviously I never got to use either one since I had a miscarriage, so I’m going to donate those too if I can remember where I put them.

Well, I’m still job hunting, with no luck, and getting ever more frustrated, depressed, and worried. I found a couple of more government jobs to apply for here in the Cleveland area – one with the Social Security Administration, and one with the Coast Guard (civilian job), but the hiring process for government jobs is notoriously slow. I've applied for a bunch of other private-sector jobs too, but haven't heard from any of them yet.

My sister’s wedding is 12 days, and I still have to figure out how I’m going to afford to pay for the alterations on mine and Bethany’s dresses - a whopping $140 : ( not to mention having any money to get our hair done on the wedding day. I don’t even know what to do with my hair half the time on regular days, let alone for a special occasion. 99% of the time I have it in a ponytail. I only took it down for my blog hat photos, because I can’t wear a hat with a ponytail.

Did I ever mention that I hate my hair? If not, here it is: I hate my hair!!! I’ve always hated it. I told my husband that I've been cursed with bad hair. The color is fine (well, I dye it regularly so I get to pick the color!), but I hate the texture. I hate that it can’t decide whether to be wavy or straight, and that it always insists on curling up in the worst possible places - think about me growing up in the 1980’s, when big, heavy bangs straight across the forehead right above the eyebrows were in style for little girls, and mine would always curl up on the side ends and look like wings. I'm still mad at my mom for getting my hair cut like that, LOL! I have long sideswept bangs in the front of my hair now and I won’t leave the house in the morning without scorching them with the hot iron and hair spraying them into submission, because I can’t stand for them to curl up.

Anyway, as much difficulty as I have with my own hair, I have about twice as much with Bethany's - extremely thick, very tightly curled, black/white biracial hair is no picnic for a white woman to deal with. My husband can get her hair a lot neater than I can, but neither of us can manage anything beyond ponytails or the occasional braids (which she hates anyway – she says braids look babyish).

So, I don’t know what to do now, because I can’t drop out of the wedding this late, but with only one income (even with my husband working all the overtime he can get), we're still barely able to afford the basics, let alone any extras. What lousy timing for me to have to lose my job when I did.

Sigh…

Jury Duty & Crocheting

2008-04-25T01:00:00.015-04:00

Well, I finished my jury duty this week. Unfortunately, I didn’t get put on a trial, but I did get this certificate commending me for my “conscientious, diligent and meritorious service”, LOL! I wanted to be on a trial though - waaah! (WARNING: Blogger messed up my line spacing on the rest of this post - I can't figure out why it always messes up on long posts).

I got called to a courtroom on Monday morning, and didn’t even make it into the jury box – I was seated in the back with the extra jurors. It was a civil case – personal injury from a car accident, and the lawyers took about an hour and a half questioning jurors, and dismissed at least 6, but got the jury picked before they got to me. Then I got called up to a courtroom for a criminal case after lunch, and sat in the jury room with about 25 other jurors for half an hour, until the judge came into the room and said the defendant had just taken a plea bargain, after the case had dragged on for almost a year. He said the defendant had gone to his ex-girlfriend’s house with a shotgun, was threatening her, fired a bunch of shots through a window, and hit her mother in the stomach. The mother’s intestines were hanging out (I wouldn’t want to be the paramedic who had to see that) and she went through 33 surgeries, but ended up dying anyway. The defendant was getting 21 years to life. I didn’t get called for anymore cases that day.

On Tuesday morning, I was called to a courtroom for a criminal case – felonious assault against a Cleveland police officer and receiving stolen property - was seated in the jury box, was one of the first to be questioned, and assumed I would be put on that jury. The prosecutor and judge dismissed a few people, and the prosecutor said he was fine with the makeup of the jury then, but the defense attorney dismissed me. Darn! I was soooo close! I still wonder what it was that made him want to dismiss me. There was a suburban police officer in the jury box (interestingly, from the same suburb where I live), and I knew he would get dismissed – as soon as he stated his occupation, the defense attorney wanted to speak to the judge and the judge ended up dismissing him. A woman whose father is a retired Cleveland police officer, and a man who said he will always 100% believe everything a police officer testifies to, also got dismissed. No surprise there either.

I came in on Wednesday, and ended up not getting called to a courtroom at all. I spent the day sitting at a table crocheting and reading and talking to four other jurors. It’s funny how five strangers, of different ages, races, and genders, can find enough to talk about to occupy 6 ½ hours – we talked about jobs, families, kids, news, sports, society, and of course, jury duty. A guy sitting at the table (who was part of the potential jurors in the case I was called for on Monday) is a corrections office with the Cuyahoga County juvenile detention center, and he had me cracking up when he said the kids at the center complain about the meals they’re served, and he told them they should be glad they’re not in the adult jail (upstairs in the same building where we were sitting), because the prisoners there get two slices of bologna (and he said the kind with the rind, not the good stuff, ha, ha!), two slices of white bread, and a warm white milk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every single day, LOL!

Interestingly, it turned out that a lady sitting at our table is the wife of one of the correction officer’s cousins, who he hadn’t seen in a long time. He had no idea who she was until he said his first name, and she recognized it, and asked him if he knows her husband. While waiting to be called for cases, I also met a woman who knows one of my daughter’s Girl Scout troop leaders – the troop leader used to teach this lady’s kids, and I met a woman who works with one of my sisters in law. This same lady had also ended up sitting in a jury box next to a woman who she knows from her daughter’s soccer team. It’s funny so many people who know each other or who are connected somehow end up being on jury duty at the same time – I guess it’s just a small world here in the Cleveland area.

Anticipating having a lot of sitting around during jury duty, I brought along a few crochet projects to work on. I was concerned about whether I would be able to bring metal hooks into the building (bags are run through a scanner), and the guard at the front entrance didn’t say anything about them on Monday morning, on Tuesday, a guard opened my bag and looked at and felt them and said they were OK, and then the guard on Wednesday didn’t say anything. I would have brought some plastic hooks, but one project I was working on is in single crochet, and I’ve broken a few plastic hooks when working single crochet, because the stitches are tight. The corrections officer I was talking with said he was surprised I was able to bring hooks in, because they could be used as weapons. I showed him one and said it’s not sharp, and he said women can’t have crochet hooks or knitting needles in prison because they can rub the hooks against the brick walls, and sharpen them. Well, apparently they are allowed in at least some prisons, because Martha Stewart left prison wearing a poncho that a fellow inmate had crocheted for her.

Right after we got done talking about the hooks, one of the court employees brought up knitting and crochet during her morning announcements to the jurors, saying that some jurors were wondering if they were allowed to bring knitting an crochet stuff with them. She said some women were stopped by the guards downstairs, and some weren’t, but that it should be OK. A lady sitting at a table next to mine saw me crocheting, and said she also crochets, and wished she had brought her stuff with her. She said she likes to crochet with two or three strands of yarn held together, and that she had crocheted a red, white, and blue blanket with three strands of yarn, and a G hook. Ouch! My wrist aches just thinking about working three strands of yarn with a tiny G hook!

Here’s one of the projects I worked on during jury duty.

It’s the back of a hoodie sweater for my daughter, done in Cotton-Ease in “Bubblegum” and Red Heart Kids (the stripes) in “Playful”. The pattern calls for a single crochet/chain 1 stitch pattern, and I tried it, but it was so hard to see the chain spaces in single crochet, and so I kept missing stitches, and just decided to make the thing in regular single crochet, with half-double for the stripes. I used a K hook for the ribbing, and a J for the body.

I couldn’t bring scissors with me to the Justice Center (obviously – since they can be used as a weapon), so I quickly realized I couldn’t get far on the sweater without scissors to cut the yarn when I changed colors, so I ended up bringing another project to work on – this capelet.

The pattern is from the book Family Circle Easy Crochet (sorry the picture isn't very clear - I need to figure out how to use the "zoom" on my camera). It’s not a very recent book – it was published in 2003, but most of the patterns are really cute. I picked it up at the library. The pattern calls for Patons Grace, but being out of work, I’m on a yarn diet : (so I’m just using some of my Red Heart Hula from my stash. The funny thing is I had actually been thinking about crocheting a capelet or poncho from the Hula yarn before I came across the one in that book. I’m using a G hook, but if I made one again, I would use a smaller hook to make the mesh neater looking. I’m making the capelet longer than the one in the book. I got the capelet about half done by Wednesday afternoon, but then me and the rest of the Monday jurors (a fresh batch of jurors is brought in on Wednesday mornings) were let go at 4 PM, and told that we didn’t have to come back the rest of the week.

I was disappointed that I didn’t end up serving on a jury, but at least I got to serve on two other ones previously (in 2002 and 2006). I would have liked to have been on that jury I was dismissed from (the felonious assault). When the prosecutor read the name of the defendant to see if any of the jurors know him, and briefly mentioned the charges, the case didn’t ring a bell, so when I got home, I looked up the case online (obviously, if I had been chosen for the jury, I wouldn’t have done that), and found a newspaper article about it, and remembered that I had read about it in the paper when it happened.

Here’s the article:

Don't call him victim: Call him to catch a thief. Stolen Jeep recovered on personal stakeout
Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH) - January 24, 2008
Author: James F. McCarty , Plain Dealer Reporter
Britt Ahart didn't sit around and wait for police to find the thief who stole his 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee from his Shaker Heights garage early Saturday morning. He did his own detective work, using cell phone records, Google and a stakeout to help nab a suspect by Saturday night. "I didn't feel helpless, and I didn't feel like waiting for someone else to do what had to be done," said Ahart, 32, an accounting employee at NASA Glenn Research Center.

Fortunately, the stolen Jeep contained a cell phone belonging to his girlfriend. So he called the cell phone provider, where a sympathetic manager bent company rules and provided the only two numbers dialed after the theft. Then he ran the numbers through Google's online reverse-phone directory, and one of them spit back an address on East 136th Street in Cleveland. Ahart drove a friend's car to the home and knocked on the door. A friendly woman said a man with a shady past occasionally slept in her basement and had called earlier that day. Ahart flagged down a police patrol car and asked the officers to look for his Jeep inside a garage behind the house. But the garage was empty.

He left empty- handed, but returned hours later. He parked a short distance away and prepared for a lengthy stakeout. He didn't have to wait long before he spotted his Cherokee backing into the driveway. He dialed 9-1-1, followed by direct calls to police in Cleveland and Shaker Heights. "I found my stolen car," he shouted.

Within minutes, police cruisers screeched to a halt in front of the house. The first two officers approached the Cherokee with guns drawn, but the suspect didn't go quietly. He started the car and gunned the engine, sending the officers diving for their lives, according to a police report. The Cherokee struck the rear steps of the house and bounced into a fence, where it became stuck. The suspect ignored orders to get out of the car and threw it into reverse, barely missing one of the officers, the report said. One officer fired a Taser dart, striking the suspect in the forehead. Another sprayed the suspect with pepper spray.

Police pulled the suspect, identified as Djuan James , out of the car, handcuffed him and strapped him to a stretcher. He was treated for cuts and scrapes to the head, then released to police custody. James , 50, of Cleveland Heights, has a criminal record dating to 1977. According to court documents, he has been to prison 13 times for nearly two dozen convictions, most for automobile thefts, breaking and entering, receiving stolen property and drugs. James was charged Saturday with felonious assault on a police officer, receiving stolen property and resisting arrest, according to the report.

Police are holding the Cherokee until they finish processing it for evidence. Even if the car is a total loss, Ahart said he has no regrets. He was most concerned about the security of his two daughters, ages 10 and 7. As of Wednesday, he had not told them about the theft. "I'll be fine as long as they

don't find out that this guy came so close to us while we slept," he said. "As far as they know, the car had a few problems, and it's in the repair shop."

Caption: THOMAS ONDREY THE PLAIN DEALER Britt Ahart of Shaker Heights didn't just recover his stolen Jeep and help police arrest a suspect. He also recovered his stolen Social Security card, trailer hitch and tool box from the suspect's basement bedroom.

I can’t imagine what the guy’s attorney could possibly say to defend him. If that jury doesn't find this guy guilty, I'll be totally shocked. It would have been interesting to be on that case and hear his defense. Oh well.

On my bus ride home Wednesday, I was working on my capelet, and was sitting next to teenager in a big t-shirt and baggy jeans – definitely not someone I would think would be interested in crocheting. He looked at the project, and asked how long I had been working on it. I told him I had just started it that morning, and he was amazed that I had gotten so much done, and asked what it was. I showed him the picture from the book, and he asked how I got the colors in the yarn, LOL! I told him I’m using a multicolored yarn, a different yarn than he one in the book. We got to his stop, and he told me before I got off that I should sell my stuff. That made me feel really good, because I tend to compare my work to other people’s and feel that mine doesn’t look too great in comparison.

Anyway, even though I didn’t end up serving on a trial, I’m still glad that I got to go to jury duty, because at least it got me out of the house for a few days. I’ve been so depressed not working and just being home every day. Yeah, I’m still busy with the kids, and housework and homework and my online grad school class, but it’s feels weird not working, and I’m just completely stressed out about money and bills and the remaining expenses coming up for my sister’s wedding on May 10th.

I registered with a temp agency last week (a long, tedious process), and they had me take a bunch of computer and typing tests. I did very well on the computer tests (all Microsoft Office programs I have a lot of experience with from work), and I found out that I type 76 WPM (and that’s even adjusted for errors). I knew I could type fast, but I had no idea I was THAT fast. I felt pretty proud hearing that, LOL!

I guess I got fast from all that damn tedious data entry my boss had me doing. I worked for the national offices of a church, and my department would put together a yearbook every year – a directory of all the churches, staff, pastors, etc. in the denomination, with financial and membership data for all of the churches. We’d send out several thousand forms every year to be completed by the churches (6,000+ churches in the denomination, but some would enter their data themselves through an online system and some just would not return the forms for various reasons, but we’d still get back about 3,000 forms every year) and returned to us to be complied for the yearbook, and I would get stuck entering the data from most of the forms.

Plus, my department would receive completed surveys sent out by other departments of the church, and I would end up dong the data entry and running reports (in SPSS – a statistical software package) for those as well. I had just recently gotten done entering the data from 1,700 surveys on health care in the U.S. I hated, HATED, all that data entry, but at least something good (my increased typing speed) ended up coming out of the three years I spent doing it.

So, now I’m just sitting at home applying for jobs, and waiting for calls from the temp agency and employers. I applied for a job last week with my alma mater, Cleveland State University. It’s just an administrative secretary job, and it would be a pay cut from what I was making at my last job, but the university is a fantastic place to work if a person can get in there. Nearly all of their jobs are unionized, and they are considered government (state jobs), so their employees are in Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (which means a pension – a rarity with most jobs nowadays). They also have very cheap, but excellent medical insurance, and are generous with paid time off and holidays. After a person applies for an hourly job, if they meet at least the minimum requirements for the position as listed on the job ad, they are called to take a civil service exam (I know I way more than meet the minimum requirements for the one I applied for), and then the top scoring people are called for interviews, and then second interviews.

I think I have a great shot at getting the CSU job, but the whole process from application to hiring can take at least 6 weeks, and I don’t have time for that. I need a job ASAP. I’m just feeling totally frustrated and worried about finding a job. The job market here in the Cleveland stinks, and seems to just be getting worse, and then I realized too that with college graduations coming up in May, that the job market is going to be flooded with new graduates also looking for work. Arrrgggh! Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers about my job search.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that last Saturday (April 19th) was my wedding anniversary! My husband and I have been married for 6 years now (we’ve been together for 16 years total). Before I lost my job, we had planned to go out to dinner and a movie, but since I’m not working I didn’t want to spend the money on it, so we just stayed home, and my husband made a (delicious!) grilled chicken salad, rolls, and a red velvet cake (my favorite dessert), and we rented a movie from the video store. We almost always rent our videos from our local library, which has a great selection, but new release movies get snatched up so quickly. Speaking of the library, my library is implementing various “green” initiatives and decided to stop giving out plastic bags at the checkout counter. As an alternative, they are selling these cloth bags for $4 each, so I bought one. I think it’s pretty nice for $4.

While I’m on the subject of "greening", when I came home from jury duty on Wednesday, I saw that this flowering tree in my front yard had started blooming. I swear it had no blooms at all on Tuesday, and by Wednesday evening it was covered with blooms. I have no idea what kind of tree it is – you probably can’t tell from the photo, but the leaves are red (they’ll turn green later in the year). Dogwood, maybe? Here's another photo, of "Casa de Red Haired Lady" (my house, LOL!).

My cat (Stormy) has been enjoying the sunny (albeit chilly) weather we’ve been having the past few days – here’s her rolling around in the backyard. Yes, I know my backyard looks torn up but my defense, it’s not my fault! My husband and I are renting the house, and I think whoever lived here before us must have had a wading pool or something in the backyard, which caused the grass to die in that area. My husband had some grass seed and a spreader, and is going to go out there one day and cover the backyard with grass seed.

Well, I’ve got to go get the house cleaned up before I go to bed (Hurricane Dominic and Tornado Bethany hit today).

Thank You

2008-04-15T12:18:00.006-04:00

I just want to thank everyone who left such kind and encouraging comments on my last post about losing my job. I am very much appreciative. I've been feeling depressed about my job situation the past few days, but reading your comments really helps me feel better.

I have an appointment with a temp agency on Friday, so hopefully I can at least find something through them. My husband got his current job (he was laid off from his last job) through a temp agency (they hired him permanently after a few months), and it's a great job - much better than anything he anticipated getting, so I'm trying to feel hopeful about also going through a temp agency.

Now, on to some good news...my son went to an appointment with a urologist yesterday, and it turns out that his testicles are fine. So, no surgery is needed. That's a huge relief for me.

Also, I found out that Caron has a new line of natural blend yarns - check it out at http://www.naturallycaron.com/. They look really fantastic - such pretty colors. Must_resist_the_urge_to_buy_more_yarn_while_I'm_not_working, LOL!

Bad News

2008-04-12T21:02:00.005-04:00

Well everyone, I got let go from my job on Wednesday. I was kind of expecting it to happen, so it didn’t come as a total shock. I’m also scared about how my husband and I are going to manage on just his income until I find another job. I’m also feeling like a total loser for losing my job in the first place, although I was unhappy there for a long time, and should really have found another job a long time ago.

I was expecting to be paid for my unused vacation time (nearly 4 weeks), but the HR department decided that the time was “unearned”, meaning that it accrues throughout the year, so they are not going to pay me for it. Oh well. I got my last paycheck on Thursday. I have a little over $15,000 in a pension fund (not bad for only having been there 3 years), but I could only withdraw it if it were less than $10,000. Basically the money will stay in my account until I turn 55. I contributed a small amount of money to an annuity while I was working, and will probably be able to withdraw that, so that will help a little, plus my husband and I will be getting our tax rebate money in May. If you go the IRS (IRS.gov) website, there’s a chart showing when the rebates will be sent. People who got their tax refunds direct-deposited will get their tax rebate money deposited to the same account. My husband is going to try to pick up as much overtime at his job as he can, and that will help too.

I applied for a few jobs, and am hoping to find a temp job in the meantime. I would really prefer to stay in the nonprofit field, or get into a government job, but if I have to take something with a private company, I will. A friend of mine works for the IRS in Cleveland, and told me they are hiring, so I applied for a job with them. They don’t pay a whole lot to start out, but employees get free bus passes, plus get 3 raises a year, including an annual cost of living increase, which sure beats anything most private companies here in Cleveland are offering, unless of course you work for the famed Lincoln Electric, which has its headquarters right here in the suburb where I live. Lincoln Electric is famous for its mammoth year-end bonuses, averaging $27,000 per employee. Yep, that’s right - $27,000 per employee. Not to mention that their manufacturing employees often earn six-figure salaries. Of course, the good pay means you practically need a shoehorn to get in there. Well, I can always fantasize about earning that much money, LOL! Right now I’d be happy with anything that pays enough to cover my bills. My husband's company though, is going to be paying for him to take a welding course at Lincoln Electric in May, and hopefully once he completes the training, he'll get a nice raise.

Well, since I got my final paycheck for a while, I paid as many bills as I could, and bought my kids some spring/summer clothes, since they’ve outgrown nearly all of their clothes, and I figured I’d better get them some clothes now before I’m completely broke and can’t afford any at all. My husband and I went to a kids’ resale shop, Once Upon a Child. I love that store! I always find so many great deals there. They only sell clothes that are in like-new condition (some stuff is brand new) and in style. I got my kids 20 shirts, 14 pairs of shorts/pants, 2 jackets,1 dress, and a couple of toys. The grand total? $189.00 including sales tax (yep, here in Ohio we pay sales taxes on everything except for food). I think that’s pretty darn good, and a heck of a lot cheaper than what I would have spent at the mall. And everything was name-brand, mall-store type clothes – Gymboree, Tommy Hifiger, J. Lo. (didn’t realize she even has a line of kids’ clothes), Talbots Kids, Limited Too, etc. A lot of my daughter’s friends shop at places like Limited Too, and I checked out their prices, but I can’t see spending $25 for one kids' shirt. Fortunately Bethany doesn’t mind wearing second-hand clothes.

My favorites are this dress and pants for Bethany, and shirt for Dominic - I love bold, bright, colorful prints. The dress is new, and was only $7.50, the pants were $5.50 each, and the shirt was $3.50.

Bethany and I also met my sister downtown today. She was going to the salon to get her hair colored, and a trial hairstyle run for her wedding. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with me to take pictures. She was at the salon for a long time, so Bethany and I walked over to our one shopping center in downtown Cleveland, Tower City Center to get some lunch. I bought Bethany a dress from the Children’s Place to wear to the wedding rehearsal dinner: The tag on the dress had it as marked down to $14.99 from the original $29.99, but when the cashier rang it up, it came it at $10.99. The matching headband rang up as only $1.99. The Children’s Place is one of the few non-resale shops where I will buy my kids’ clothes, because they are not that expensive to begin with, and they have such fantastic sales. I love that they put their clothes on clearance while they are still in season, so I can actually buy spring clothes on clearance in the spring. I also get coupons from them in the mail, where I can save an additional 15-25% off the already reduced prices.Well, since you’ve been patiently reading so far, I do have a crochet project to show.I finally finished my mom’s poncho that she asked for last spring. I know, that's terrible. I should have made her one a long time ago. I started it in the fall, and got bored with it halfway through, and put it aside. Now that I have some extra time since I’m not working, I pulled it out and finished it. Hopefully it will be big enough – my mom gained a lot of weight when she quit smoking. I used a K hook, 6 skeins of Bernat Softee Chunky in “Nature’s Way” and a partial skein of Softee Chunky in “New Denim Heather” for the trim. Since I just did the poncho in boring double crochet, I wanted a fancy border. I got the border design from the book “Cozy Crochet”. It was actually a thread crochet design. I’m probably going to hold onto it until Mother’s Day, and give it to her then.

I’m also trying to finish up my sister’s wedding shawl. I should be done with it in a few days. I’ll post pictures when I’m done.

Not Much Crocheting

2008-04-08T23:35:00.021-04:00

I was just looking at my blog, and realized that I haven’t posted since March 26th. I’ve been meaning to post, but had been sick with a really nasty I don’t know what it was. Whatever it was, my kids caught it too, and we had fevers, chills, body aches, nausea, runny/stuffy noses, etc. etc. My kids got flu shots in the fall, but they don't protect against every strain of the flu. We stayed home from work and school on Friday and Monday. Two sick kids + one sick parent + one too tired from working nights to do much + a lack of extra money = one boring weekend. Between being sick and just generally depressed about my job situation and my daughter’s school situation, I haven’t gotten much crocheting done lately.

I took my daughter to an appointment last week with her pediatrician for an ADD evaluation. My kids normally see a different pediatrician in the same practice, Dr. S., but I decided to take her to Dr. G. instead, because she is so much more thorough than Dr. S. Dr. S. is very nice, but just not thorough. Dr. G. is the one who found my son’s problem with his testicles.

Anyway, I was very impressed with how well Dr. G. handled the assessment. She explained the process to Bethany and asked her questions, as well as questioning me and my husband, did a whole physical and family medical history, and gave me some questionnaires for me and Bethany’s teachers to complete about her behavior/school problems. She also asked me if I have considered putting Bethany in a public school, because she feels that public schools usually have more resources to deal with special needs kids than private schools do (Bethany attends a Catholic school).

I personally disagree with that. I believe that perhaps is the case with public schools in wealthier districts, but the public school district in our working-class suburb is chronically struggling financially, the schools are large and overcrowded, and all but two schools in the district (neither of which are in my neighborhood, so my daughter could not attend them) have been underperforming academically for years.

Although our suburb is overall working class, it has some middle to upper class pockets, particularly along the lakefront, where homes sell for as much as $300,000 (which here in poverty-stricken Cleveland where the cost of living is so much cheaper than many other parts of the country, easily gets you a 4 bedroom, 2,500+ square foot house). Bethany’s Catholic school is close to the lakefront, and draws a lot of kids from the wealthier families in the city, children of professionals, business owners, city politicians, etc., and so the school is doing very well financially. They do a mammoth amount of fundraising every year, and get a lot of donations. The downside is that some of the parents can be snobby, but I feel overall that the education is very good, and the school, despite being one of the larger Catholic school in our city, is small compared to the public elementary schools (it has about 420 kids from K-8th grade, compared about the same number of kids in a K-4th grade elementary school). I just can’t see Bethany doing any better academically in resource-poor public school.

In any case, Dr. G. wants to Bethany to undergo some other tests before she makes a diagnosis. She gave me a referral to a pediatric neurologist, just to rule out any other problems, and she also gave me a referral for Bethany to go to an occupational therapist to help with her handwriting and fine motor skills.

Now, this is where I’m starting to feel extremely stressed out. My husband and I are already a few thousand dollars in debt from the kids’ allergies and asthma, his diabetes, my breaking my wrist last year, my last pregnancy, miscarriage, and D&C, and his vasectomy, and this is even with having medical insurance. I’m shuddering thinking about what the total bill is going to be by the time we get our daughter’s school problems straightened out. Sometimes I think we’re probably going to be in debt with medical bills for the rest of our lives.

On top of that, as I mentioned before, I’ve been trying to find another job, but I’m going to have to take a lot of time off over the next few months for Bethany’s appointments, possibly for Dominic’s surgery (if he needs it) and all the other myriad appointments that go with Bethany’s math learning disability - I have several meetings per school year to review her progress and go over her IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act) plans, And also having a kid who will be starting kindergarten this year complicates things - I have to take Dominic to a kindergarten screening and a few other things before school starts. Now, if I do find another job, there’s no way I’ll be able to miss work for all of that, and with my husband working nights, and having to sleep during the day, he can’t attend all these things. Sometimes I think life would be easier if I could just work part-time or not work at all, but neither of those is an option for me financially, even if my husband picked up more overtime at his job, and we cut our expenses down to the bare-bones minimum, we still just couldn’t afford it.

Speaking of work, I saw a really good documentary at work last week (there are occasional "brown bag" educational lunches that employees can attend) called Kilowatt Ours, about energy usage and enviromental damage. It was quite alarming. There was one segment where a man was standing on a hill in West Virginia, I think it was, overlooking a valley and said that just a few years ago, there were mountains there instead of a valley - the mountains had been blown up to allow mining of the coal underneath. How messed up is that? I was already alarmed, before seeing the film, when I read this article, about the p0tential siphoning of Great Lakes water by other states that are experiencing water shortages and droughts. The film really made me think though, about all the small, daily actions that have a huge impact on our environment, and made me think about changes I can make. I was dismayed though that the film left out any mention of the effects of urban sprawl and automobile dependence on the environment, but perhaps the filmmaker will address it in a future film.

Well, now that I got all the negative stuff out of the way, I do have one small crochet project to show (warning - blogger messed up my line spacing below):

It's a hat I crocheted from Red Heart Hula yarn. I had bought the yarn a few months ago to crochet the “Cupcake” sweater from The Happy Hooker, but the sweater is done in HDC, and I had a terrible time with the multicolored strand on the yarn (it’s a solid off-white strand wrapped with a thin multicolored one) snagging on the hook, and I gave up on it. One of the skeins had a pattern for a hat, so I made it. I usually have a hard time getting crocheted hats to fit my head (I guess I have a big ol’ head) and end up having to include some extra increases, but I didn’t have that problem with this pattern. I followed the pattern exactly as written, except that I added some additional rows at the end to make it a little longer, and I added a reverse single crochet edging and a flower. It only took about an hour to make. What do you think? I think it came out pretty cute, and it’s comfortable, too. Now I just have to try to keep my daughter from taking it over, LOL!

I also got a couple of crochet books recently from the library. My local library has a section of newer books and I always browse the craft books when I go there. Last time I went I found an amigurumi book called "Mr. Funky's Super Crochet Wonderful". There are some really cute patterns in there. I think I’m going to have to buy my own copy of the book.

I also recently picked up a copy of Interweave Crochet. I don’t normally buy the magazine, because for one thing, I think $6.99 for a magazine is atrocious, and secondly, most of the patterns have always seemed too difficult or too elaborate (like I would never have an occasion to wear them) for me. I went to a bookstore downtown one day at lunch last week, and was browsing through the magazines, and saw the spring Interweave Crochet issue (surprisingly, since this bookstore never used to carry crochet magazines) and was really surprised and how many patterns I liked it in it and that were actually ranked “Easy” Here are the ones that are definitely on my “make sometime” list:

In the meantime, I realized that I have way too many crochet projects started but unfinished, so I’m trying really, really hard to finish them up before I start any more new ones. I’m trying to finish up my mom’s poncho that she asked for last year, so I can give it her on Mother’s Day, and I’m trying to get my sister’s shawl done before her May 10th wedding. I thought I was going to have to buy another skein of yarn for the poncho, but then I was going through my stash, and found a spare skein I had bought a few months ago, and forgotten about. That was perfect! I put some yarn up for sale on EBay, if anyone wants to check it out.

Well, I guess that’s enough griping for now. I feel better having gotten some of this off of my chest.

Lazy...

2008-03-26T23:44:00.020-04:00

I've had a couple of crochet projects to show for about two weeks now, but have just been lazy about updating my blog. I’ve just been feeling so drained the past few weeks. My husband’s working nights is really getting to me.

On top of that, I’m dealing with a bunch of issues with my daughter. I had a meeting about two weeks ago with her teachers (regular teacher, the other 4th grade teacher, who teaches science to her class, gym teacher, and her special education teachers for her math and handwriting difficulties). Her 4th grade teachers raved about how incredibly bright she is, and that she has above-average verbal skills and vocabulary and is very creative and imaginative, and a good writer, but she is still failing math, her handwriting is nearly illegible, and she can’t stay focused on tasks for more than a few minutes at a time. I’ve noticed the same thing with her at home, with her lack of attention – she’ll go from one thing to another to another – she’ll play on the computer for a couple of minutes, then watch TV, then play with toys, and go back and forth to various things. Homework takes forever because she’ll stare off into space, or start fidgeting with things on her desk, or just generally not pay attention. Apparently it’s the same thing at school.

Bethany’s gym teacher says she appears to have problems with fine motor skills, because of her difficulties in mastering things like dribbling a basketball, etc. Now, I am concerned about her handwriting difficulties, but, and other parents would probably disagree with me, I don’t think a lack of athletic skills or abilities is the end of the world. My daughter isn’t lazy by any means – she loves to be active, she loves swimming, and she enjoys her weekly gymnastics classes at the Y, even though she isn’t great at them. As long as she is being active, then I don’t see why it matters whether she’s actually skilled at any sports. The 4th grade has been practicing bowling in the gym, and the gym teacher mentioned how Bethany can’t throw the ball straight down the “lane”. And? I told the gym teacher that I’m 34 years old, and get gutter balls every time I go bowling. Does she really expect a 10 year old, with a minimum of bowling experience not to get gutter balls?

Anyway, I’ve been feeling for sometime that my daughter may have ADD, which is causing her lack of focus in school, and I asked her teachers if they think she may have ADD. Her special ed math teacher said she can’t legally diagnose Bethany with ADD, but that in her opinion, and compared to other kids she’s seen with it, she believes that Bethany does have ADD. She suggested taking Bethany to her pediatrician for an evaluation, so we have an appointment on April 1st (appropriate, huh?) for the evaluation. She also suggested trying to get Bethany occupational therapy for her handwriting problems. Her printing is nearly illegible, and she is having great difficulty with cursive. I need to check into whether my medical insurance will cover occupational therapy, and then I’m going to ask her pediatrician for a referral to a therapist. Both of my kids already have asthma and allergies (my daughter also has eczema), so I’m already dealing with a lot of medical bills and medication expenses related to those, and now with my daughter’s school problems, it seems like it's just getting worse.

Well, on to happier things…

I hope everyone had a good Easter. I had Friday through Monday off from work. I took my kids to my mom’s house last Saturday to dye eggs with their cousins. They had a lot of fun. We went back over there on Sunday for Easter dinner with my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and in-laws. My niece Rosie (my oldest brother Joe’s stepdaughter) ended up spending Sunday night at my house, after Bethany nagged me about it. Rosie is such a sweet kid, and very well behaved, so I didn’t mind having her over. My Dominic just loves her. He loves playing with his older girl cousins for some reason. I crocheted some headbands for Bethany (left) and Rosie (right), although you can’t see the headbands that great in this picture.
I also got to see my new baby niece (Rosie’s little sister), Jenna, a couple of times. Now, I know I’m naturally biased since I’m her aunt, but I still think she’s just adorable! That’s her below, on Easter, with her dad. Joe somehow got the tall, skinny gene in the family (it just skipped right over me, LOL).Joe’s oldest son, Anthony (from his first marriage) is in the photo on the wall behind Joe – Anthony is in the Air Force. He’s stationed in a tiny little town in Idaho. He says there’s not much to do there, but at least he has a girlfriend there – he’s dating a Filipino girl who’s also in the Air Force. When I hold Jenna, I can’t help but think about what my baby (if I hadn’t miscarried this last pregnancy) would look like now, and if I would have had a boy or a girl, and I feel a little twinge of sadness inside. Still, it’s nice to have another baby in the family, since my other nieces and nephews are getting older.

My husband and I took Rosie home on Monday evening, and only planned to drop her off and go, since my husband had to work Monday night, and we needed to go grocery shopping, but my sister-in-law, Gehan, talked us into staying, and with Jenna there, how could I resist? Did I mention what a cute baby she is? Dominic loves seeing Uncle Joe, because Joe is a fantastic artist (as was my dad, and as is Joe’s twin sister, Desiree), and draws Dominic pictures of his favorite Veggie Tales to color. Gehan's birthday was on Easter, but I didn't even realize it was her birthday, so I didn't even have a card for her. I feel so bad, because she's such a great person, and she's been so sweet to me and my husband and kids. I'll have to crochet up something for her.

After we finally left, we stopped at this new Wal-Mart Supercenter that just opened last year, in the nearby Steelyard Commons (built of the site of an abandoned LTV Steel plant). It’s the first Wal-Mart to be built within the city of Cleveland (not within the suburbs), and only shopping center of its size within the city. I was really impressed. I wish we had one closer to my house, on the east side (my brother lives on the west side) - everything in Cleveland is either “east side” or “west side” – east side is east of the Cuyahoga River, which runs through the outskirts of downtown, and west side is west of the river. Most people grow up on one side or the other, and rarely venture over to the other side. I’ve lived in the Cleveland area my entire life, and still only have a vague idea where things are on the west side. I was pleased to see that the new Wal-Mart has yarn, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to stop and look at it.

I did manage to get a couple of crochet projects down over the past few weeks. I finally finished up a granny rectangle blanket I was making for Bethany.

I started it early last fall, and got bored with it when I was about 75% done. It sat untouched for a few months until I finally pulled it out and finished it up (OK, I still need to weave in the dozens of ends, which I dread, and have been totally putting off). I planned to make it to fit Bethany’s full-size bed, but it's still large enough to cover her comfortably. I used Bernat Camouflage in “Go Girl Camo” and Bernat Super Value in “Pale Damson”. I really don’t like the colors. I’m not much of a purple person (although I do love pale lavender shades) I had ordered both yarns online, and the Camo looked a much more pink in the photo, and the Super Value looked much lighter. I didn’t feel like returning the yarn, and had spent too much money to go out and buy different colors. Bethany likes the blanket though.

I used the leftover Camo and Super Value, plus some leftover Bernat Satin and Caron Simply Soft to crochet a matching bolster pillow. I got the pattern for the blanket from the Super Value label, but the pillow was my own design. I bought the pillow form directly from the manufacturer, Airtex. I was going to order one from Joann’s, but they wanted $9.99 plus $15 shipping ($5.99 + an oversized item fee), compared to $6.99 + $5.99 shipping from the manufacturer. My Dominic saw the pillow, and wants one now too, but crocheting a cover for a round pillow was a lot more work than I anticipated, so I told him I’ll crochet him a square pillow. Poor Dominic has been neglected on the crochet front. It’s not that I don’t want to crochet anything for him, it’s just that there’s so few crochet patterns and ideas for boys. He did ask for a “pink, black, and white kitty”, so I got all the materials to make one, and need to get started on that, and I need to finish up the ripple blankie I started for him last year.

I got some crochet books over the past few weeks too!The first one, “200 Crochet Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets”, I ordered from Amazon, when my other brother Brian cashed in some coins at one of those grocery store Coinstar machines, got an Amazon gift certificate from the machine and gave it to me. This is a fantastic book – well worth the price. It has tips on solving just about any kind of crochet problem imaginable. I know I’m going to get a lot of use out of it. The second book, “Crochet Stitch Bible”, I bought at a Borders store downtown with a 20% off coupon. I’ve been wanting a stitch guide for awhile, and when I got the coupon, I figured I should just go ahead and buy one. Of course, as luck would have it, the day after I bought it, I got a 30% off coupon in my email. Grrrr! The last book, “100 Crochet Projects”, is one that my mom got when she signed up for a book club, and gave to me. It has a couple of cute projects, unfortunately, most of the projects in the book are either too advanced for me, or are just things I wouldn’t want to make.

Well, if you’ve stuck with me this long, thank you! I’ve got to clean up the house and get to bed soon. I had considered taking this week off from work to stay home with Bethany on her Easter vacation, but didn’t, and instead enrolled her in a spring break camp at the Great Lakes Science Center downtown from Tuesday-Friday of this week. I had originally planned to just take her there and back on the bus with me, but my husband offered to drop us off and pick up every day. I’m glad he did, because I realized that the Science Center is a much farther walk from the bus stop than I initially thought. Bethany is enjoying the camp so far – she’s loved science since she was a toddler. There’s a different theme every day – yesterday was "LEGO Robotics", today was "Make Your Own Art Supplies", tomorrow is "Get Fishy" (they get to dissect a real Lake Erie fish – eewww!), and Friday is "Cricket Creatures".

We have to pick Bethany up by 5:30 every evening and today Rodney came to pick me up, and got downtown at 5PM and got stuck in traffic for nearly 40 minutes trying to get to my job. Downtown has been terribly congested between this Euclid Corridor Project (a complete waste of money if you ask me, but don’t get me started, or you’ll never hear the end of it), the water main break of a couple of weeks ago, which is still being repaired, and a Cavs (basketball) game tonight. I have zero interest in sports (unless ice skating and bowling count), so I had no idea there was a game tonight. Had I known, I would have asked Rodney to pick Bethany up first, before coming to get me. As it was, we ended up not getting to the Science Center until 5:50, and Bethany was bawling when I got there – she gets so worried if my husband and I are late picking her up from things. She thought something had happened to us. The employee who was with her was really good with Bethany though, and fortunately didn’t charge us for being late.

I was just going to finish up this blog post, when I remembered one more thing – I got a very exciting piece of mail today! A jury duty summons! I know, I know, I’m probably the only person in the country who gets pumped up about jury duty, LOL!

But hey, here’s how I look at jury duty: I have to go downtown every day for work anyway, so it’s no big deal to go downtown for jury duty. I get an hour to an hour and a half for lunch every day when I’m on jury duty, and get to eat in the delicious (seriously, it’s really good food!) Justice Center cafeteria. I’ll have a lot of breaks during which I can crochet (there’s a lot of sitting around with jury duty, even when you serve on a trial), although I probably won’t be able to bring my metal hooks with me, because they would set off the metal detectors. I have a full set of Lion Brand plastic hooks though, so that’s not a problem. I’ll be done by 4-4:30 every day (I don’t get off work until 5:30-ish everyday). I love true crime stories and hearing about forensic evidence, so I don’t mind criminal trials. I’ll get paid for the time I’ll miss from work. And, best of all, I won’t have to see my boss for a whole week (possibly longer), LOL!

This will be my third time doing jury duty in the past 6 years. I served on an aggravated robbery/aggravated murder trial in 2002, a robbery/kidnapping trial in 2006. and now have to report again in April. It’s funny though how I’ve been called 3 times in 6 years, when I’ve met people in their 50’s and 60’s who have never been called, even though they’ve been registered to vote since they were 18.

Well, whew! I think I covered everything I wanted to say. Thanks for bearing with me through this long post!

Spring in Cleveland Brings...

2008-03-22T21:08:00.011-04:00

Snow (taken just two weeks ago, and we got more snow today - grrh!)...

Downtown St. Patrick's Day Parade (complete with high-school aged kids drunk off $2 green beers, stumbling down the sidewalks, but not pictured here)...

Beautiful PIF gifts sent all the way from Italy from Angela (Riohnna) of "My Tangled Threads"...

Crocheted Easter eggs...

Happy Easter everyone!

We Have a Winner!

2008-03-21T19:32:00.003-04:00

OK, I used the handy Custom Random Number Generator to pick a 3 digit number for my blog contest, and I got 439.

That means Lesa, who picked the closest number, of 345 (which is her daughter's birthday!) is the winner of the "Lively Up" hat!

Congratulations Lesa! Please email me at redhairedlaura at hotmail.com with your address. I'll put the hat in the mail on Tuesday (I'm off from work until Tuesday, but will be going to the post office at lunchtime on Tuesday).

Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest, and who reads my blog - I am much appreciative!

Blog Contest!

2008-03-14T00:39:00.018-04:00

As most of you already know, March is National Crochet Month. But, did you know that this March also happens to mark one year since I learned how to crochet? Yep, I've been crocheting for one whole year now - woohoo!

I also learned an interesting little crochet-related tidbit today while volunteering for the annual COSI science fair (this year's theme was "Blast Off Into Space") at my daughter's school: VELCRO® brand hook and loop fasteners are named for the French words "velour" and "crochet". How about that?!

In any case, in celebration of both national crochet month and my one-year crocheting anniversary, I'm having a little contest on my blog!

The prize is this lovely, "Lively Up" hat (pattern from "Get Your Crochet On! Hip Hats and Cool Caps"). It's crocheted with super soft TLC Cara Mia yarn, two strands (peach and coral) held together, and it even has a stylin' flower on the side.

You could become the proud owner of this hat if you do the following:

1) Pick any 3 digit number between 100 and 999
2) Leave a comment on this post with your number and that you want to enter the contest.
3) You have until next Friday, March 21st at 6PM (EST) to enter.

What I'll do then after I've received all the entries, is select a 3 digit number using this handy dandy Custom Random Number Generator: http://www.mathgoodies.com/calculators/random_no_custom.html (couldn't get the one word link to work). The person whose number is closest to the 3 digit number generated, will win the hat.

I'll then announce the winner on my blog, and the winner can email me at redhairedlaura at hotmail dot com with their name and the address to mail the hat to.

Good luck!

Wordless Wednesday: Public Square in Downtown Cleveland last Thursday

2008-03-11T07:02:00.000-04:00

Seven Random Things About Me

2008-03-10T22:08:00.005-04:00

Christina tagged me!

The tag rules are:
1. When tagged, place the name of the person and URL on your blog
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Write 7 things about yourself
4. Name 7 of your favorite weblogs
5. Send an e-mail letting those bloggers know they have been tagged

Unfortunately, I don't really know 7 other bloggers to tag (who haven't already been tagged), but I'll answer the questions anyway. : )

So here are 7 random things about me:

1) I still have the pink baby blanket that my dad bought for me the day I was born 34 years ago. I sleep with it every night (can't fall asleep without it), take it on vacation with me, and my kids fight over it.

2) I have a phobia of bridges - I hate riding in a car over them, although I'm not particularly afraid of heights in general. I am also deathly afraid of bugs, especially centipedes, millipedes, and caterpillars.

3) I don't know how to drive, and I didn't learn how to ride a bike until I was 17 and my younger sister taught me.

4) My husband and I had our first kiss in the walk-in cooler of the Burger King restaurant where we worked (and met). I think there must have been an aphrodisiac in the food, because so many of the employees (including my brother and sister who also worked there with me) ended up dating each other.

5) I'm missing a foot and a half of my colon. When I was 27, my colon became infected and ruptured, and I spent a week in an ICU, had part of my colon removed, and had a colostomy for 3 months. My husband brought my pink blanket to the hospital for me.

6) I believe in aliens and ghosts.

7) I wish time travel were possible, and that I had a time machine.

I'll have a crochet-related post soon. I have a couple of projects to show as soon as I can take pictures of them. My camera batteries are dead, and I can't find the charger.

New Yarn!

2008-03-02T00:39:00.000-05:00

No, I didn't buy any new yarn, but I went over to Knitting Warehouse - www.knitting-warehouse.com, to look at something, and noticed a bunch of new yarn listed under their "Newest Items". Caron has a line of new yarn called "Simply Soft Paints" and Lion Brand added some new colors to their Cotton-Ease line. I love me some Cotton-Ease, so I'm thrilled that they added some new colors! Go check it out!

@#$%&!

2008-03-01T11:44:00.015-05:00

Arrggh, it’s been a bad week!

On Monday both of my kids woke up with fevers and coughing, so I stayed home with them. I went to work on Tuesday, and then on Tuesday night, a bad snow storm blew in, so Bethany’s school and Dominic’s daycare were closed, and I had to stay home with them again. I went back to work on Thursday, and had a mountain of work waiting for me from the time I missed.

On top of that, I got a request from my daughter’s special education math teacher for a meeting on March 14th, about “concerns about Bethany’s progress”. Bethany sees her twice a week, and even with that, and me helping Bethany with her homework every night, she’s still failing math. I don’t know what more I can do, other than to hire a private tutor, which I can’t afford. I also finally got an appointment for my son for his testicle problem, and am worried about him potentially needing surgery. Too much stress all at once. At least things are going great for my husband at his job - he does maintenance work for a tool and die making plant, and just got promoted to a higher grade level, which translates to a $1 an hour raise. I was very happy to hear that, as we can definitely use the extra money.

Anyway, I got a much needed lift when I came home from work today and opened this swap package from my February Crochetoholic’s Swap Blog partner:

The whole package was truly so thoughtfully and wonderfully put together!I love, love, love everything!

This is what Joann sent:

5 skeins of Lily Sugar N' Cream yarn in beautiful pink shades (did I mention that pink is my absolute favorite color?!).

A pair of pink knitting needles and two crochet hooks.

A beautiful hand knitted dishcloth.Two packets of pink (!) hot chocolate, (which I so need to buy more of to send to my best friend in Texas, who is also crazy about pink, and whose birthday is coming up next month).

A bag of dark chocolate raspberry Hershey's Kisses, which is great, because besides loving dark chocolate, I also happen to love raspberry with chocolate (how did Joann know?!).

A great crochet book, "Hooked on Crochet" and two crochet pattern books, including one with pansy kitchen items to crochet, which is fantastic, because pansies are my all-time favorite flower!

Two patterns for cute heart crochet "fridgie" magnets.

A bag of light-up mini rubber ducks (to match my rubber duck themed bathroom!) that my kids have already claimed, and an adorable rubber duck soap.

A pack of note cards with my name printed on them!

The package just came at a really great time.

I do have some crochet projects to show too. I finished up my daughter’s “Soldier” hat last weekend:

I used Caron Simply Soft Shadows in “Mardi Grey” for the main color and Simply Soft Brites in “Watermelon” for the trim and flower. The trim and flower were my own addition. The pattern was easy to follow and worked up quickly, but it bothered me that the book doesn’t list the finished circumference for the hats. I ended up having to keep having Bethany try on the hat until I was sure it was big enough. Bethany was happy with the hat, and is going to wear it to school when they have their “Crazy Hat Day” in the spring. I found the Simply Soft Shadows on Knitting-Warehouse.com. I love that website! They have a great selection of yarn, great prices, flat rate $5.99 UPS shipping on any size order, and I always get my orders within 2 business days after placing them.

These other three hats I made are donations for the Ships Project and a local cancer support center here in the Cleveland area, The Gathering Place. I used Simply Soft Shadows in “Soft Merino” for the first one, and Red Heart Soft in “Teal” and “Guacamole” for the other two.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot – I got my shoes for my sister’s wedding!

Shauna said she doesn’t care what kind of shoes the bridesmaids wear, as long as they’re silver, so we got to pick out our own shoes. I love these because the heel isn’t too high (I can’t walk in anything too high), and they have an ankle strap (I have a hard time walking in backless shoes). I bought them from Endless.com. I ordered them on Tuesday and got them on Wednesday, and, the shipping was completely free – how awesome is that? Add that to no sales tax, and the shoes being on sale for $10 off, and woohoo! My older sister Desiree, whose 10 year old daughter Alexis is also a junior bridesmaid, and whose 3 year old daughter Kaitlyn is the flower girl, bought some silver shoes and purses for Bethany and Alexis.

Now I just need to buy a purse for myself, and figure out what kind of bra I can wear under my dress, with it being a halter top and backless. I’m probably going to have to end up buying a convertible bra, which will most likely amount to a whole day of discomfort, but well what can I do.

Dresses!

2008-02-23T19:42:00.016-05:00

My sister Shauna came over today to take Bethany and me to pick up our bridesmaids’ dresses at the bridal shop and to take Dominic to get fitted for his ring bearer tuxedo. Here are the dresses!
Mine, obviously, is the larger one (periwinkle), and Bethany’s the smaller (lavender). Shauna’s wedding flower is hydrangeas, and I think these colors will look great with them. We tried on the dresses at the store, and Bethany’s fits really well, although the top will have to be brought up so it won’t be too low-cut. Mine fits great through the hips, but like I expected, it’s enormous on the top. Unfortunately, despite three pregnancies, I still don’t have much in the chest area, sigh… I think it might also need to be shortened – being only five feet tall, dresses are almost always too long on me. The dress is supposed to be tea-length. We’re going back to the bridal shop in March to get the alterations done on the dresses. Dominic got fitted for his tuxedo. He only tried on a jacket, and was measured, but how cute he looked in the little jacket! He’s little for his age, but luckily the smallest size tuxedo and shoes fit him. He'll be wearing a black tux with white shirt, vest, and tie. The men have it easy – it was only $45 for his tux and shoe rental, including alterations, compared to the couple of hundred dollars mine and Bethany’s dresses put me out. And that’s not including alterations, shoes, getting our hair done at the salon for the wedding, etc., etc. When I told my husband this, he said women wouldn’t want to rent a dress or shoes anyway. Maybe.

I’m excited that I finally got my dress, but now the downside is that I realized that the color of the wedding shawl I’m crocheting for Shauna is way off. The shawl is definitely a much lighter blue than the dress. Oh well. I’m still going to finish it and give it to her anyway, because she could wear it for another occasion. Here's me wearing what I have done on the shawl so far. I need to make it a little bigger, so it can tie in the front, and then I'm going to crochet a scalloped border, and weave ivory satin ribbon through the border.

Now I just need to figure out whether Bethany and I should wear pantyhose with the dresses or not. We're both going to be wearing open-toed silver shoes, and I don't know if they would look weird with pantyhose, being open-toed. I also happen to hate, with a capital "H" wearing pantyhose, but then again, my legs are so pale in early spring though. My lucky daughter has a pretty, year-round tan. Pantyhose or no pantyhose, Barack vs. Hillary - too many decisions to make, LOL!In other crocheting news, I had two really nice experiences the other day! I was sitting on the bus the other morning on the way to work, working on my one of my top-secret PIF gifts, and this man, probably in his 30’s or 40’s sitting in the seat opposite mine, said he was watching me crochet, and was amazed at how fast I was crocheting. Now, I know I’m not fast, but I guess to a non-crocheted it looked that way. He asked me what I was making, and asked what other kinds of things I crochet. That was nice to see a man taking interest in crochet.

The other nice thing that happened was my coworker, Taylor, wore a scarf I made for her for Christmas to work. I mentioned it to her, and she said she gets so many compliments from other people in our office building whenever she wears that scarf, or one I made her for her birthday. She’s taking some college classes, and she said one of her professor’s crochets or knits, and asked her about her scarf, and thought it was so pretty. That made me feel really good. Taylor said she’ll have to have me make her more scarves in different colors for other holidays. I told her definitely, I’ll gladly take special orders!

I took the kids to the library last week, and checked out this book, “Get Your Crochet On!: Hip Hats and Cool Caps” by Afya Ibomu. When I was looking it through it, I saw a pattern for a crocheted head scarf that just looked like something Taylor would love. I brought the book to work and showed it to her, and she was just so thrilled! She loved the scarf and most all the other hats in the book so much, that she said she’s going to Joann’s this weekend to buy some yarn and a hook so I can teach her how to crochet. I had offered to teach her before, because she had mentioned wanting to learn, but she said was too busy with work and school. After she saw those hats though, she decided she can carve out some time to learn how to crochet. That’s pretty exciting. Hopefully I’ll be a good teacher. We’re going to sit down and work on it one day at lunch time. Taylor was looking at my pictures of my crochet projects on my blog, and she said it looks like I’m totally addicted to crochet. I told her I am, and once she learns how to crochet, she’ll be addicted too!

Bethany has a “Crazy Hat Day” at school every year, I think in the spring (she goes to a Catholic school, so they don’t normally get to wear hats at school), so I’m working on a hat from the book for her. The hat is called “Soldier” (there’s pictures of a few on Ravelry), and it’s just basically a cap with a brim. The bottom is crocheted as a flat piece, then seamed together into a tube, and the top and brim are crocheted onto the tube. I'm going to crochet a flower to attach to the hat too. Here’s what I have done so far:

I’m using Caron Simply Soft Shadows in “Mardi Grey”, and I love how it’s coming out so far! Did I mention that I’m a sucker for self-striping yarns?

Well, I’ll post more pictures of the hat as I get it done. Now, if I could just figure out how to get this Blogger line spacing to stop messing up...

Eclipse!

2008-02-20T23:09:00.008-05:00

Sorry, no crochet projects to show yet. I've been so tired and stressed out lately between work, school, planning my sister's bridal shower, and helping her with her wedding plans, and my husband working nights, that I haven't gotten a whole lot of crocheting done.

My daughter announced today that she joined the fourth grade book club at her school - they meet once a week at lunchtime. That made me really happy. I'm glad that she (and my son too) loves books. I'm glad that she's old enough now to read chapter books too. I read to her every night before bed, and right now we're working though the "Main Street" series by Ann M. Martin. The title sounds corny, but the books are very good. They deal with some pretty substantial topics for the 9-12 year old set - death, mental retardation, alcoholism, Alzheimers, but are sensitive to the age group of the readers. Ann Martin also wrote another book called "The Meanest Doll in the World" that my daughter and I both really loved. I just bought a previous book in the same series, "The Doll People" for Bethany and I to read after we finish up the Main Street book we're reading.

My son and I right now are enjoying the Veggie Tales' Mess Detectives books. He's totally obsessed with Veggie Tales. I'm just glad he likes them instead of that Barney my daughter loved when she was little, LOL! At least the Veggie Tales are cute without being sappy. We're really fortunate that the suburb we live in has a great public library. It has a whole room of children's DVD's and videos, with two shelves of just Veggie Tales ones, so Dominic is thrilled everytime we go there. I'm happy that the library has a big section of crochet books, and that they are always adding new books to it.

Anyway, to make up for a lack of crocheting photos, I do want to show this: http://www.mind-flush.blogspot.com/. A fellow Clevelander and crafty blogger, Gretchen, took some fantastic pictures of the full lunar eclipse we had tonight. I planned to look for the eclipse, but was helping my daughter with homework and putting my son to bed and missed it. I still can't believe she stood outside in the 12 (feels like 7 with the wind chill) weather to take these! Aren't they great?! Check out her other website, http://www.lazymamadesigns.blogspot.com/ (couldn't get those darn one-word links to work!) to see her awesome knit, crochet, and sewing projects.

My Dominic

2008-02-16T13:56:00.008-05:00

My husband took my son Dominic for his yearly checkup at the pediatrician's office yesterday. The pediatrician my kids normally see wasn't available, so Dominic saw another pediatrician in the practice. The doctor he normally sees is nice, but not very thorough, so I'm glad he did see a different doctor, because we found out that Dominic has what's called "undescended testicles".

Now, I'm not one to go around examining my son's private parts (LOL), but I did notice when giving him baths, etc., that the testicle area did a look a little "flat". He's my only boy, so I had nothing to compare it to, and I figured it was just how little boys look. When the doctor examined him though, she couldn't find his testicles, and after feeling around, realized that they are in his abdominal area. She gave my husband a phone number for a specialist who can examine Dominic further, and determine if he needs surgery. She said the surgery would have to be done before he turns 6, otherwise he'll start experiencing a lot of pain, and wouldn't be able to play sports, etc. Thank God that it was caught now.

I was doing research about the problem online, and found out that undescended testicles need to be treated as early in age as possible, to prevent future infertility. The articles said the undescended testicles are rare in boys that were born full-term, and Dominic was actually born a week late, so I wonder what caused this? I'm irritated about this now, because Dominic has had dozens of checkups since he was born, with various doctors, and I can't believe none of the doctors saw this sooner. I just hope he doesn't end up being infertile from it. That would so unfair for him.

Well, sorry if that was TMI (too much information) - I just had to rant!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T23:08:00.014-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! My son was so wound up about Valentine's Day this morning. He told me Miss Tammy (his teacher at daycare) said the kids "are going to be king of hearts and queens today", LOL! He's a funny little boy.
I decided to go the card shop downtown yesterday at lunch time to get a card for my husband, and some Beanie Babies for the kids. I should have known better. I got to the card shop, and there was a line at the cash register starting at the front of the store and stretching all the way to the back, and people were three-deep at the rack of Valentine's cards. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that a card shop would be packed the day before Valentine's Day. I gave up trying to buy a card (ended up getting one at the drugstore instead), and just got the kids' Beanie Babies. I got Bethany a pink teddy bear, and Dominic a dolphin (he loves the Veggie Tales "Jonah" movie, and has little figurines of the characters from the movie, except for the whale, so I thought he could pretend the dolphin is a whale). I gave them to the kids this morning, and they really liked them.

My husband came home from work this morning with a card, a box of chocolates, and these beautiful roses, for me. Isn't he sweet?! My kids got loaded up with candy at school and daycare, of course. Bethany didn't get nearly as much candy as Dominic, so she tried to get into his candy, and he told my husband, "Everytime it's a special day, Sissy gets into my candy!". They managed to get into my candy too, but that's OK, because I already had enough Valentine's day treats today.
I gave my husband some man bath stuff from Bath & Body Works for his gift. OK, I know that's probably not the ideal gift for a man, but there's so few places left to shop in downtown Cleveland anymore. Dozens of stores downtown have closed over the past 10-15 years (our economy here is in bad shape). We don't even have any department stores left. My husband and kids and I went to Pittsburgh (they have an incredible children's museum) in 2006 and we ended up driving through downtown (after Mapquest got us completely, horribly lost on our way to our hotel after going to Kennywood amusement park - long story), and even Pittsburgh's downtown looks more alive than Cleveland's does (at least they have a department store left) - now that was depressing!
We went to Chicago in 2005, and I was in awe, I mean absolute awe, over the blocks and blocks of stores they have downtown - everything from low to moderate priced stores like Payless and Sears, to top of the line upscale stores like Tiffany's and Bloomingdale's. They even have a Joann Fabrics downtown. If I worked in downtown Chicago, I'd be in trouble, because I sure would go broke with all those stores there!
Anyway, I have a few crochet projects to show. I've been meaning to post them for a while, but I've been totally sick all week. I have a horrible cough that won't go away. It gets worse at night, and when I lie down, and in addition to not being able to fall asleep, I wake up half a dozen times a night coughing, and am now just completely exhausted. I've been taking over the counter cough syrup, but it doesn't help much. I'm really hoping this isn't turning into bronchitis. I had bronchitis about 6 or 7 years ago, and it took over a month for the cough to go away, plus the prescription cough syrup and antibiotic made me so nauseated that I couldn't get out of bed.
On top of the lack of sleep, I've been busy planning my sister's bridal shower that's coming up next month, and have been swamped with that. At least I got to stay home from work on Monday, because my kids' school and daycare were closed because of the cold (only 7 degrees), and I got to leave work at 3PM on Tuesday (with pay for the rest of the day) because a bad storm was rolling in.
I did get my sister's ringbearer pillow finished, finally. I had both of the crocheted pieces done, and tried single crocheting them over the pillow, but a bunch of the ribbon rosettes and pearls popped off while I was crocheting. Then when I finally got it put together, I realized that the heart looked all distorted. I ended up cutting off the cover, throwing it away, and crocheting two new pieces. Luckily I had bought extra rosettes and pearls, so this time I glued them on after I was done with all the crocheting and the border, and it came out a lot nicer looking this time.I'm still working on my sister's shawl as well. I'm about 75% done with it, but think I'm going to need a few more skeins of yarn.
The last bridal shower present I have for my sister is this hydrangea unity candle.

It's personalized with her's and her fiancee's names (Shauna and Rich) and their wedding date. The bridal shop called today to let me know that mine and my daughter's bridesmaids' dresses are ready to be picked up, so I'll be getting those soon. Mine is periwinkle blue and my daughter's is lavender. I'm excited to see how they look, because the store didn't have any sample dresses in that style in those colors.
The second crochet project I have is a hat I crocheted for my friend Latanya for her March birthday. After I sent her crocheted Christmas presents (which fortunately she loved), she started throwing hints for me to crochet her a hat or a jacket. I don't have the skills to crochet any jackets yet, but I can do hats. I used Bernat Organic Cotton in Prairie Rose and Desert Bloom for the hat. The organic cotton is a little pricey, but so much softer than regular cotton and I figured Latanya would like because she's really into organic and natural products.
The hat pattern is a "Gidget Bucket Hat" from the book "Get Hooked Again", and I figured it would be a quick, easy project...ha! This hat drove me absolutely crazy! If it weren't for a gift, I would have just scrapped it. I don't know if something was wrong with the pattern, or if I just have a big old head, because I just could not get this hat to fit right. The pattern called for an F hook, but I crochet tightly, so I used a G, and got the right gauge. The book said at the correct gauge, the hat would crochet up tightly, but would stretch to fit most heads. Well, the hat came out so small and short, it would have fit my 5 year old son. I tried again with an H hook, and it came out too big. I went back and forth with different size hooks, and ended up using the G, and adding some extra increases and rows until I finally got it to fit.
I literally must have made and took apart four hats before I got it to come out right. It's still a little tight, but at least I can put it on. The pattern didn't call for a turning chain between rows, and I'm wondering if that was part of the problem. It didn't occur to me until after I finished the final hat that I could have added a turning chain between rows, or maybe even done the hat in half-double crochet instead of single. Oh well. Hopefully it will fit Latanya OK.
I'm also working on my PIF gifts, and am about halfway done with those, but can't show them here - I don't want to ruin any surprises!Have a happy Valentine's Day (what's left of it, anyway!)

Knitty Gritty

2008-02-09T18:45:00.000-05:00

For any of my readers who watch Knitty Gritty on HGTV, I heard it's gradually being phased out. I've personally never seen the show (only because I don't really have much time to watch TV), but I heard it's very good. Denise Layman from http://www.knitchat.com/ is asking people to send knitted swatches (I suppose they could be crocheted too) to HGTV in protest. She has more information on her blog.

Crochet Contest

2008-02-08T19:37:00.000-05:00

Crochet Today Magazine is having a contest. Check it out here:

http://www.crochettoday.com/pdfs/heartcontest.pdf

There's a very talented few crocheting ladies I know from cyberspace who I think would be fantastic at this (Lesa, Christina, Naida, Laurah, hint, hint!)

Happy Belated Mardi Gras!

2008-02-06T23:38:00.000-05:00

Happy belated Mardi Gras day! The 4th graders at my daughter’s school get to dress up as clowns for Mardi Gras, and they get treats, and parade around the school, visiting all the classrooms. Here she is all dressed up before school! How did I do on the homemade costume (well, I did buy the wig and the makeup)? She was so excited about getting dressed up that she got out of bed yesterday morning without even complaining like she usually does every morning.

As a nice treat for me, my daughter didn’t have homework yesterday, so I got a break from helping her with homework. She also didn’t have math homework today, which was nice too. I sit down with her every night to help her with homework, and she only needs minimal help with spelling, religion, science, etc., but math is a huge chore. She was diagnosed with a math learning disability in second grade, after struggling with math since kindergarten, and, despite receiving one on one tutoring twice a week through the school, and my nightly help, still gets D’s and F’s in math.

I understand how she feels, because I’ve struggled with math as long as I can remember too. Math was a nightmare for me in elementary school. I used to be mortified when I’d have to get up in front of the class to do a math problem on the board. I ended up taking a bunch of remedial math classes in college, and had to take a required statistics class three times before finally passing it with a C. I just don’t “get” math, never have, and helping my daughter with it is very frustrating. It takes us a good 40 minutes to get through her nightly 26-26 math problems, and I feel like a moron when there are a few problems that sometimes I can’t even figure out.

Hey, it’s only 4th grade math, and I nearly have a master’s degree, so the math should be a breeze for me, but it’s not. I feel terrible because my daughter loves science – has loved it for as long as I can remember, and wants to be a scientist one day, but I’m afraid with her math difficulties, that she might not be able to. It seems like most of the really good paying jobs require strong math skills, and not having them excludes a person from a lot, but I don't know what more I can do to help my daughter.

Well, as for me, I’ve been sick for the past few days with a nasty cold that I no doubt caught from my kids. I woke up this morning with a sore throat, cough, stuffed-up nose, and the whole right side of my face hurting, so I didn’t go to work. After getting the kids ready for school and daycare, I took some cold medicine, went back to bed after my husband left to drop them off, and didn’t get back up until 2:30. I’ve been trying to rest (when my kids will let me!) and following along on the Internet with this Bobby Cutts trial.

Now, I like to watch true crime TV shows, and I’ve been on jury duty twice in the past four years (once for an aggravated murder/aggravated robbery case and once for a robbery/kidnapping case), so I’ve seen some sick stuff, but this case really takes the cake.

Bobby Cutts is a former Canton, OH (Canton is about an hour south of Cleveland) police officer who is accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend (Jessie Davis) in front of their 2 year old son, and dumping her body in the woods. He was married at the time he killed her, and, as if that weren’t bad enough, it turns out that he was also seeing two other women (so four women total including his now ex-wife) while all this was happening! Then on top of that, one of the girlfriends was also married, and had gotten pregnant by Bobby, and had an abortion the day Jessie was murdered! And, Jessie and the two other girlfriends all knew he was married, plus Jessie had actually gotten pregnant by him three times (she miscarried one).

The prosecution is saying he killed Jessie because he was deeply in debt, and didn’t want to have to pay child support for their second child (he was already paying child support for a daughter conceived when he was in college, plus child support for Jessie’s first kid, and was ordered to pay child support to his ex-wife, who had started divorce proceedings before Jessie was killed). Can you say sick??? I know paying child support is no picnic – my oldest brother pays a small fortune in child support every month to his ex-wife for their one biological son, but to murder someone over it? All this could have been avoided if he hadn’t been messing around with all those women in the first place! And, I can’t figure out how this guy even got on the police force in the first place? Don’t they do psychological testing before letting a person join the police academy? Just crazy!

I did get manage to make some progress on two crochet projects today at least. I finished my daughter’s cupcake pillow. OK, I didn’t get it done in time for her birthday, but at least it’s done, right? I’m going to give it to her tomorrow when I get home from work. I used an H hook, Lion Brand Cupcake yarn in Pink Lemonade for the top, and Bernat Satin in Lagoon for the bottom. I had originally crocheted a cherry for the top, but after I sewed it on, I didn’t like it, so I cut it off, and used fabric glue to glue on some beads instead. The beads were just cheap ones from the beauty supply store. You’ll have to excuse the glue marks (it’ll dry clear) and the pins on the bow (those are just to hold it in place until the glue dries). I used a pattern I bought from a seller on Etsy for the cupcake, but I made it larger than called for in the pattern.

I also finished the inside pillow part of my sister’s ring bearer pillow. Now I just need to crochet the back cover, crochet them over the lavender pillow, and add a lavender ruffled edging. I’m still plugging away on her shawl when I have time. I like to crochet on the bus to and from work, but a bunch of busses were cut from the route I normally take, so most days the bus is so dang crowded, I can’t crochet at all. : (

That’s about it. I’ve got to clean up my house and get my kids’ clothes ready for tomorrow and then am going to bed

Jenna with a "J" and Crochet Goodies

2008-02-03T22:35:00.000-05:00

I don’t have any finished crochet projects to show yet. I’m still working on my sister’s wedding shawl and ring bearer pillow, and trying to get my mom’s poncho finished up before her February 27th birthday. I have one panel done so far. Like Christina and Lesa though, I do have some crochet goodies to show!

I was keeping my crochet hooks, stitch markers, yarn needles, etc., in a drugstore makeup bag, and was tired of always having to dig around it in trying to find the right size hook I needed, my scissors, etc. I couldn’t find a hook case I liked at any stores, so I ended up buying a hook roll and notions bag from a seller on Etsy, Blue Kitty Designs. How cute are these?! I love the retro pattern and colors!

My hooks and notions have now gone from this:

to this:

The hook roll isn’t big enough to hold all of my hooks, but it has room for all of the ones I use regularly.The hook roll and bag came in the mail on Friday (I ordered them on Tuesday and got them on Friday – talk about fast shipping!) along with my February/March issues of Crochet Today and Crochet Magazine, and some yarn I had ordered from Joann’s for one of my PIF gifts (I have two PIF gifts to make). That made for a very good Friday!

I just got back a little while ago today from my brother Joe and sister in law Gehan’s house. My husband and kids and I went to see my new niece, Jenna. Yes, I finally got the spelling straightened out – it’s Jenna with a “J”! It’s actually ironic that’s she’s named Jenna, because if I had a little girl this last time I was pregnant (the one I miscarried) my husband and I would have named her Genevieve. I guess great minds think alike! My husband said I did good going to see her. He meant because I still have some sadness over my miscarriage. I do still feel sad about it still, and can’t help but wonder what it would be like if I had been able to carry the baby to term.

At the same time though, after seeing Jenna go through two diaper changes (including one so bad she needed a bath to get cleaned up!) and two feedings during the couple of hours we were there, made me realize that having a baby at this point in my life (with my husband working night shift, me working full-time and being in grad school, and having one kid in school with nightly homework, etc., and one about to start school in the fall), would have been totally overwhelming. I told Joe in a few months (when Jenna is a little older) he can drop her off at my house, and I’ll babysit her so he and Gehan can have a night out and I can get my “baby fix”, LOL!

Anyway, little Jenna is just ADORABLE! I wish I had some pictures to show of her, but my digital camera batteries had run low right before I tried to take some pictures. My husband took a few pictures with his cell phone, but he has the phone with him at work, so I can’t download the pictures right now. It’s funny how chunky she looked in the pictures my brother sent, but when I saw her in person, compared to my kids, she looked so tiny! I had forgotten how little young babies actually are.

My brother is such a proud dad – he barely put that baby down for a second the whole time I was there. He has 3 boys from his first marriage (two stepsons and one biological son), but this is his first girl, so I think it’s extra special for him. His second-oldest son, who’s 15, actually went to Wal-Mart and used his own money to buy Jenna some clothes – he bought her the cutest little bodysuits and hats and booties. For a 15 year old boy, he did a really good job shopping for her! I thought that was really sweet of him.

Speaking of baby clothes, I was planning on crocheting a few clothes for Jenna – the sundress I started, a sweater and maybe another dress, but after seeing how many clothes Jenna has (a dresser and a closet stuffed full) between gifts from family and friends, now I’m reconsidering it. I don’t want to spend hours making something that she’ll probably end up only wearing once before she outgrows it. I’m thinking now about crocheting something for her bedroom – maybe an organizer to hang on the door (to hold diapers, pacifiers, etc), or maybe a rug.

Besides crocheting, I also enjoy painting and stenciling wood items, so I am also considering painting a shelf for Jenna's room. I’ve never shown any of my painted items on my blog, so here’s one I did last year – a desk for my daughter’s room (I think you can click on the pictures to see it in more detail). My husband and I bought the desk for $25 at a secondhand store. It was brown with ugly tarnished gold knobs. I sanded the desk down and sprayed it with white primer, then my husband spray painted it pink and cream and I stenciled the flowers on the side with stencil crème paint. My husband then sprayed the whole thing with a coat of clear polyurethane, and replaced the knobs. One of these days I need to buy her a pink desk chair to go along with the desk.

Back to the crocheting, another thing I was thinking about making is a nursing shawl for my sister-in-law. She’s breastfeeding Jenna, and just drapes a receiving blanket over her shoulder when she breastfeeds. I was thinking it might be nice for her to have a pretty shawl to use when she goes out with the baby. I didn’t breastfeed my kids though, so I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or not, and if I do make one, what shape it should be – rectangular or triangular? Maybe any of my blog readers who might have breastfed their kid(s) could advise me.

Blog Game

2008-01-31T20:25:00.000-05:00

I saw this on a few other blogs, and I thought it sounded interesting, so here goes:

The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright."

Father went to college.
No. He dropped out of high school in the 10th grade.

Father finished college.
No. He never attended college.

Mother went to college.
No. She only has a high school diploma.

Mother finished college.
No. She never attended college.

Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
Definitely not. My family was poor when I was growing up, and the teachers were all middle-class.

Have any relative who is an attorney, physician or professor.
One of my older sisters is a child psychologist and is the director of a youth group home/mental health agency.

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
I always loved to read (still do), but didn’t own many books as a kid. I mostly had books from the library.

Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
No.

Were read children's books by a parent all the time.
My mother read to me and my brothers and sisters occasionally.

Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
Only free swimming lessons at the local public pool (but I still can’t swim!)

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
No.

The people in the media who dress and talk like you were portrayed positively.
No, because I was quiet, shy, and a bookworm. I was also poor, and on TV, no one is poor. Even working class families on TV live in beautiful houses, have nice cars, and their kids attend good schools (can we say unreality???)

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
No.

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
No. I paid for all my college tuition and books myself with work and financial aid.

Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
No.

Went to a private high school.
I went to a Catholic school, but didn’t graduate. I dropped out in the 11th grade and later got my GED.

Went to summer camp.
Went to a free camp at the Salvation Army one year.

Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
No.

Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
Only once or twice but they were cheap motels. Occasionally we would go camping.

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
I can only count a few times when I got new clothes. Almost all of my clothes were either from secondhand stores, hand me downs from an older sister, or were clothes my family got from our church. I didn’t really have new clothes until I turned 16, got a job, and started buying my own clothes.

Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down.
No. My dad never even had a new car. He only had used ones, and occasionally he didn't have a car at all, and he would have to take two busses to get to work. I grew up in the city, so my brothers and sisters and I were able to walk or catch a bus most anywhere we wanted to go.

There was original art in your house when you were a child.
No.

Had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
When I was 17.

Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
Yes, they owned a house, but just a small, ordinary ranch (one-story, no basement or attic) house.

You had your own room as a child.
Not until I was a teenager and some of my siblings had moved out. As a kid I shared a room with two of my sisters.

Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course.
No.

Had your own TV in your room in High School.
No.

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College.
Had a 401K, because I didn't start college until I was 19, and was already working full-time.

Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
No.

Went on a cruise with your family.
No.

Went on more than one cruise with your family.
No.

Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
No art galleries, but occasionally we would go to the natural history museum here in Cleveland.

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.
Definitely not! I was very aware of how much utility bills, a mortgage, and food all cost.

My First Swap Package!

2008-01-30T22:49:00.000-05:00

I joined a swap on Crochetoholic's Swap Blog last month, and received my first swap package the other day from Laurie at Really, Just Let Me Finish This Row. What an awesome package it was!

I got a bag of wonderfully scented lavender potpourri - (I could smell it before I even got the box open!), a kit to grow some lavender plants (how did Laurie know I've been wanting to grow some lavender for the longest time?!), perfect for growing in a pot on my sun porch, three Burt's Bees lip balms (and I happen to love Burt's Bees products!) in an adorable little case, a Knitting Pattern-A-Day boxed calendar. a really cute winter penguin hand towel (very appropriate, because my daughter and I are reading a book called "Mr Popper's Penguins" for a 4th grade class assignment!), a can of yummy milk/dark chocolate hot cocoa mix (which I had to hide to keep my daughter from getting into it!), two skeins of soft, white Patons Lacette yarn, a pattern for a beautiful scarf, three skeins of Lily Sugar N' Cream yarn in a pretty (pink!) Strawberry color, and a pack of lovely white Swarovski beads. Finally, I got a nice note from Laurie written on a knitting themed note card (too cute!).

My son actually had no interest in anything in the box except for the bubble wrap - he started nagging me for the bubble wrap as soon as I opened the box. He likes popping the bubbles, LOL!

All in all, this was a wonderful first swap for me! Thank you so much Laurie!