Jury Duty & Crocheting

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).

Lazy...

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!

Crochet Goodies!

I went to Wal-Mart the other day to pick up a few things, and stopped by the crafts section. I only meant to buy some ribbon and buttons, but course had to take a look at the yarn. I was very excited to see a ton of clearance yarn and crochet books! The aisle was a mess, with yarn all mixed-up, and a lot with labels pulled off, but I found 5 balls of Bernat Cool Crochet in a very pretty Neapolitan color, for $1.50 each (regularly #3.47)! I bought all 5 to make a halter top from Shannon Okey's ”Crochet Style” book.

I picked up some books on clearance, too - "I Can't Believe I'm Knitting! for $7.96, "Crochet Hip Hats" for $3.50 and "Simply Soft Accessories" for $5.00! Yippee! My daughter's school has a "Crazy Hat Day" every year, where the kids can wear hats to school (she goes to a Catholic school, so hats aren't part of the regular dress code), so I'm looking forward to crocheting her a hat from the Hip Hats book to wear that day.

I also recently subscribed to Crochet Today magazine, and got the set of hooks in the mail as a thank-you gift. I love using large crochet hooks! I'm impatient and projects with large hooks work up quickly, plus large hooks are also easier on my wrists, so that was a nice surprise. I used to buy my Crochet Today issues at Wal-Mart, but Wal-Mart only carries it sporadically, which I don't understand. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a crochet wasteland here in Cleveland, because so few stores around here carry crochet magazines. Same thing for crochet books. The one bookstore we have in downtown Cleveland (where I work), a Borders Express, only carries knitting magazines, and has maybe one crochet book among a bunch of knitting books. Go figure!