Witty Title Here

I wish I could tell you that this was going to be an exciting or witty post, but, in all fairness, it's probably not.
Today would have been my kid brother's 41^st birthday, had he made better choices 22 years ago AND survived the military action that was going on at the time, since he was a United States Marine. This fact is not particularly relevant to anything else I have to say today, it's just a little tidbit I thought I'd toss out there. 

In the last couple of weeks since my last post, I've been working on getting paperwork together for a couple of things.

1. SNAP (AKA Food stamps)—I've been approved, pending paperwork processing, which, really, I've turned in already, and am now just waiting to get notified that the money has been put onto my card. I can only purchase non-taxable food items, which is fine with me. Since I have been a responsible person and not had any children that I cannot afford to support, I am limited to 3 months of assistance every 3 years unless I am working at least 30 hours a week, earning minimum wage or more. The problem I have with this plan is that if I had a job, even at minimum wage, I would not so desperately need the assistance! The past twenty-odd years that I have been working and paying taxes which support this very program that will provide seemingly unlimited assistance to women who prefer to keep having children that they cannot feed mean nothing when I am the one needing assistance, apparently.
2. Workforce Investment Act—I have been approved to get into the program, and I had to apply for a Pell Grant, even though there is funding available from the state to pay for my schooling. I was denied the Pell, because, well, I have a Bachelor's Degree, which, after spending $25K of loan money, plus 4 years worth of Pell Grant, is not actually worth the paper upon which it is printed. I've left a couple of messages for the coordinator of the program at the Workforce Center, and expect to hear back from her tomorrow.

I have resigned myself to living with a catbox on a table at the end of the bed, since it will save my mattress, as well as wear and tear on the sheets and mattress protector. My body is adjusting to sleeping on plastic tablecloths between the mattress & mattress pad (yes, I'll take all the defense I can get against cat pee on my 2 year old, $900 mattress!).
I've been working on my faire calendar, and hoping that I'll have managed to come up with some money to spend, at least for admission, at said faires. First up is Middlefaire, which will likely be the first weekend of October. It's sort of become a tradition for some of us who have birthdays that first week to celebrate at Middlefaire that weekend. The following weekend I'm hoping to be able to make it down to TRF for their opening weekend with friends that are planning to go then. It seems that as long as I'm living here at Castle Wford, sharing responsibility for HoBBiTcaTs & WaveorgoNaked,Sphynx either I can be gone, or the roomies can be gone, but we can't all be gone a full weekend at the same time. I'm planning to make Dickens on The Strand again this year, which makes missing the 3 day weekend at TRF easier to bear, cuz I really don't need to be gone two weekends in a row, and the roomies will be in Corpus for Thanksgiving, so I'm staying closer to home. I hear that there are a couple of Pirate invasions planned at a local garden area, but don't have dates on those yet.
I'm also brainstorming ideas to make this space a little more interesting (thus drawing more readers and hopefully ultimately some advertising revenue), as well as helping to give me a goal to meet each week… maybe a photo of the day, recipe, quote, or something, I just haven't figured out what I really want to do, other than aimless rambling. Any ideas would be most appreciated!
 

OOH LOOK, I have posted again!

It's been a busy couple of weeks since Thanksgiving. The move is almost complete, literally. Tomorrow I'm going back to the old place to clean and pick up the last few items still over there, and Saturday will do the final walk through and turn over the keys I honestly had hoped that I would live there for many years, and ultimately purchase the house, but alas that was not to be.

My friends, The Rogues, entered a Battle of the Bands being sponsored by an Irish brewery. They took 2^nd place in the preliminary round, out of 65 bands from North America and Europe, and advanced to the finals. If they win, they will go to Las Vegas to perform at one of the resorts for St. Patrick's Day, 2010! If you would take just a moment to go to http://www.slbc.ie/involved/competitions/, watch their video, which is listed first on the page, and cast your vote, I would really appreciate it, as would they. Also, your vote will also enter you into a drawing for a trip to Vegas to see them!

Thursday afternoon I made my 3^rd annual trek to Galveston for Dickens on the Strand. I had hoped to head down earlier in the day, but alas that didn't work out and it was very nearly 4 p.m. before I got out of here! I was looking forward to seeing the island in the daylight, to see the recovery from Ike. Obviously since it was after 9 when I arrived, I was only able to see what was lit, and truthfully, that alone was an AMAZING difference from last year! I stayed with friends who live on the island, in a beautiful, late 19^th century home, which, fortunately sustained no real damage to the living spaces, though the workshop on the ground floor had about 5 feet of water & muck in it. Of course we stayed up entirely too late, since we hadn't seen each other since June. They added a train to the scene in their living room.

If you look closely, you'll see that it's a LEGO set! How awesome is that? Apparently you can go to the LEGO website and design whatever you want and get the pieces shipped to you!









Friday was full of roasting and other preparation of food for the party Saturday night. I promise to put up recipes later.  There were dire predictions of a significant (for Galveston, anyway) snowfall on Friday, however we only saw a few tiny flurries that didn't amount to anything, and about 5 minutes of sleet, but it was COLD! It was good to see more of the island than I've seen in a great many years! We had lunch at a little bakery called the Sunflower Bakery & Cafe as we had to go by there to pick up the birthday cake. I can highly recommend their Deluxe Grilled Cheese, made with Gruyere Swiss, applewood bacon, and tomato (which I left off, thankyouverymuch) on sourdough. Of course we stayed up way too late again that night, but that's because the rest of the visitors had rolled into town.

Saturday dawned COLD, and I layered up so in an effort to be warm but not overly hot and needing to go back and forth to the car. It was a cold, but pretty day, and the crowds were pretty good, from what I saw. I kind of thought I might run into more people from up here than I did, but for whatever reason, it just didn't happen. The Rogues had 2 stage shows and did several street shows throughout the day. I have to say that being back in the pub was AWESOME, since last year we were pretty much out on a street corner the whole weekend because so much, including the pub was not yet open again after the storm. Because of the weather in the Midwest, one of the pipers couldn't get back to TX in time for Saturday's shows, so we had an emergency fill-in, Stuart Clements, who did a fabulous job, especially considering that he had NEVER played with the Rogues before! It was a wonderful day, and the gathering at the house that night was, of course, a good time, as the bunch of us that was there tends to spend a lot of time laughing and enjoying the conversation, not to mention the food!

Sunday was a bit warmer, and another beautiful day on the floaty bit out there in the Gulf. I was only out until about 2:30 due to a need to get the Canadian contingent back to the airport in time for their flight. I did score some fun things, including a couple of Woozies, a smartass, an awesome 2 piece barrette thing for my hair, and a couple of other gifts that I am not ready to reveal, lest I spoil the surprise! My drive home was longer than I would have liked, largely because it was rainy for about half the trip, but I was certainly glad to get back to my kitties and my own bed, on the ground floor, as opposed to on the 2^nd floor of a house that sits about 12 feet above ground level to begin with… Have I mentioned my butt is quite tired from all those stairs?

Today's random weirdness can be traced back to Sunday at Dickens, and the smartass I bought. On Saturday, as I walked around looking at the various vendors, I came across one that had a variety of pins shaped like butts. There was a rat's ass, dumbass, a smartass, a kickass, a pain in the ass, cinnamon buns, a candyass, an ass 'n' 9, a grapeass, a buttface, and I don't even remember all of the rest of them, but I found them highly amusing, and went back on Sunday to purchase one of the smartass, and a rat's ass. While I was standing there deciding just which ones I needed, I noticed some beads on the other corner of the booth. When I'd made my selection, I was looking at the rest of the booth, and I realized that the beads over there were ROSARIES! That struck me as even more amusing than the asses in the first place, having both products in the same booth!

Giving Thanks

Another holiday season has officially arrived. Today's attire included this year's first wearing of the festive holiday attire. I left the headwear at home, but the earrings came out, as did the festive holiday socks. I went over for dinner with some fellow MacGiggles and had some fried turkey and tasty sides, plus chocolate cherry cake, a wee slice of pumpkin cake, and a bit of chocolate chip pie. Of course there was a good bit of giggling and some interesting stories told.
By the time I got home, my cats were unhappy, the dog & pig were more than ready to come back into the house, and the upstairs cats were STARVING! I got everybody fed and settled in for the night, and I am POOPED! (Ok, I THOUGHT they were settled, but it sounds as if Bob, Mollie & Blondie are having a conga line or something upstairs!

On my racing trip back to the old house in the hopes that my camera was still over there, I also located one of the 3 iPod cords that I'd torn up my space looking for last night, so I was also able to re-sync the Christmas playlist back onto it, because, well, it's time to listen to and sing Christmas songs! While I am of the firm opinion that Christmas carols should not be played publicly until Thanksgiving, starting on Thanksgiving Day, I'm blasting them as much as possible, and singing along, usually out of key, loving them! Christmas is generally my favorite time of year, I suspect partially because of the amount of joy that seems to be in the air.

Tomorrow's a busy day with finding a storage building, finishing the unpacking of what is already here, and posting the Christmas stash onto Ebay in hopes of clearing more of the stuff that I've been carrying around out. I absolutely want to have my room put together before I head to Galveston for Dickens next week! Since that's the case, I'm thinkin' it's time for me to head for bed, with Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar as my bedtime viewing/listening!

On a better note

It was a hellish week last week, and I've come to a couple of conclusions. First off, I try to do entirely too much. I don't necessarily overschedule myself, I just tend to forget to schedule myself some downtime on a regular basis. I never really thought about it much before, but in the past few months, I have not had a whole lot of just mindless, quiet time. There are several reasons for this. The biggest, I think, is the presence of another person in my house. When there's a roommate in the picture, and you've lived alone, save for the cats, for 6 years, it takes a little adjustment. I can't just go in my room and close the door, because that locks the cats either in and screaming because they want out, or out and screaming because they need the litterbox. The roommate situation should resolve itself by the end of January, but in the meantime, I need to work out how to achieve my own quiet time with someone else in the house. The second reason I haven't had so much down time is because I've done a good bit of traveling over the last few months, and it seems as though I'm always packing for a trip, or unpacking from a trip, or planning what to pack for the next one. Mostly I've enjoyed my travels, but quite honestly, I am glad that this weekend is the end of my traveling until probably spring at least. Secondly, I am so wired to be a caretaker to the world, that I tend to get swept up in helping other people and doing for them, that I forget to make myself important too. Ultimately, this leads me to begin to feel taken for granted. I suppose that the bottom line is that with a couple of exceptions, I AM a better friend than I HAVE. I need to remember to be a better friend to ME, which may sound selfish, but at some point I wind up having a breakdown and getting hysterical over stupid stuff because I've gone too far for too long for too many people besides me, and get, I don't know, lost, I suppose for lack of a better word. Yep, I reached that breaking point over the weekend. It is not my responsibility to save the world, it is my responsibility to save ME, and THEN do what I can to make the world a better place. I am also beginning to feel a little stress over my upcoming surgery. Two weeks from today, I will be uterus-free. This makes me quite happy, as I have had now a total of 371 menstrual cycles. With the exception of 1 that was only 3 days, and 1 that went on for 2 weeks (yeah that was a nightmare let me tell you), they have all been 5 days long, almost identical to each other. Yep, that's 1862 days of everyone's favorite aunt flo. Add to that anywhere from 5-8 days of PMS each month on top of those actual periods, and that's another 1800-2500 days of hormonal bitchiness, crying, and general BLAH-ness. Yep, I'm done. I'm over it. I've had plenty thanks. In the last couple of years, the PMS has been getting worse, I've cramped more than ever, and I just keep being more and more miserable each month. I've had several people ask me if I am sure about the hysterectomy, because, well, there are other options, such as endometrial ablation, which is a 70% chance of no more period. Umm, yeah, thanks, but since the cost is about the same for both options, I'll take the one that is a 100% chance of no more thankyouverymuch. That doesn't mean that I'm not nervous about the surgery. I mean, the last time that I had surgery was when I was 3 and fractured my skull and required neurosurgery (yep, explains a lot doesn't it?). I have no memory of that incident, so I have no idea what really to expect as far as reactions to medications, etc. Fortunately, it's a laproscopic procedure, so it should just be day surgery and I should be able to sleep with my cats that night. I do have someone lined up to wait at the surgery center for me, and take me home, then stay with me until my roommate comes home from work that night. I think I've got someone coming the next day, and beyond that I've not got worked out yet. I've been told by a couple of people that I'm going to want, and actually probably need someone there at least the first week or so. I guess I better get cracking on that. The bonus to the surgery is that I will have a couple of weeks off from work and hopefully get a little sewing done for faire in the spring.

My last couple of trips have not turned out as I had expected or hoped, but I'm determined that this weekend will be different. I am headed down to Galveston for Dickens on the Strand. Yes, Ike did some major damage, and Dickens won't be the same as in previous years, but the festival is most definitely an indication of the island's desire to rise from the rubble and return to normal. Lots of entertainment and vendors, though smaller than usual, it should be a good time. I'm staying with friends, in their historic home, which was fortunately not as seriously damaged as it could have been by Ike.