Last Day

Today is the last day of my Spring Break, and despite having 9 days off, I'm still not ready to go back to work.  I have got to find myself a sugar daddy or something.  In the meantime, it's back to work I go...

In the current chapter of Why Do I Still Have This?, we have...mix tapes!

I tried to listen to some of them, but the older ones especially are distorted so badly they're essentially unplayable.  I only told a half truth up there.  I do know why I keep these.  Back when I was stationed in Italy, I kept my radio on an Italian station to see if it would help me learn the language.  I figured if I listened to it all the time, it would get inside my head more quickly.  

All that to say, despite not understanding most of the words, there were a couple of songs I really liked.  I managed to record a few of them on a mix tape -- which I now can't find.  I hang on to all my tapes, hoping I'll find the one with the songs on it.  I actually found one of them on YouTube, but I can't remember enough of the words of any of the others to even search for them.  A few years ago, I tried humming the tunes into one of those apps like Spotify or whatever the other one was, but didn't have any luck.  Maybe I'll try again, now that technology has advanced more. 

The good news is, that whole big box of junk has now been reduced to this small box of junk.

I'm pretty sure most of it can be tossed as well.  I'm going to take the empty plastic box and start trying to sort through all this junk next.    

Most of this is knitting projects or yarn, so let's just hope I don't get distracted. 

You know those stickers that people put on their cars that say 13.1 or 26.2?  Those are for people who've run half marathons or marathons.  A few years back, I found one appropriate for me. 

The last thing I did was to get out all the letters I've gotten from my pen pals over the last few years and sort them into stacks.  

All but one of these people has stopped writing.  Heh, one of them closed her letter by saying she was looking forward to many years of writing, and I never got another letter from her.  There are a few of them that only wrote one letter, and then never wrote back, and others I wrote to first who never responded.  I'm beginning to think it's just me. 

Sigh...I've found one new pen pal on the website, but none of the others I've tried contacting has responded.  I might need to see if there is another site I can sign up for -- one that's not locked down so tightly.  The Global Penfriends site has changed since I first signed up for it.  You used to be able to browse people's profiles, but now you have to wait until they send you a match that they pick out.  

I know they do it for security reasons, but it definitely makes it harder to find pen-pals.  

The new season of Call The Midwife and Sanditon start tonight.  I may be paying for it tomorrow, but I'm staying up to watch them tonight.  

Such A Doofus

I swan, I can be such a doofus sometimes.  

So, Becky, what doofusy thing did you do this time?  Well, I'll tell you.

I was sitting there watching TV, when I decided I need a break from Time Team and Masterchef Jr, so I binge watched all three seasons of The Chosen again.  In one episode, it was a scene which took place at night, just after the sun set by the look of the sky.  There in the background, the full moon was shining bright. 

It struck me then that when he was here on Earth, Jesus walked under the same moon I go out into my back yard to look at.  While I was sitting there, all awestruck that the creator of the universe once walked under the same moon that I do -- you see where I'm going with this, don't you?  

I did the old V-8 forehead smack and said to myself, "You doofus!  Jesus created that moon!"  Which, despite my doofusiness, is still pretty amazing when you think about it. 

I did another doofusy thing today, as well.  I cast on another hat

despite not even being halfway done with the one I already had on the needles. 

And I'm currently fighting the urge to cast on a third.  Clearly I've been infected by cast-on-itis.  If only finish-itis was as easy to contract. 

Apropos of nothing, Marty Mac has come out of dormancy and is putting out new growth. 

I'm starting to put him outside during the day to get him acclimated to full sun exposure, and once it's warm enough, I'll leave him out all the time.   Probably after this next cold spell, I'll be able to put him out for good, and just keep an eye on the weather unless there's a late frost. 

I guess the big news of the day is that I got my writing stuff all organized and put away.  In the top drawer of the little brown filing cabinet I put my stationery and envelopes. 

Into the bottom drawer went my wax stamps, stickers, and washi tape. 

And the pens and ink are safely tucked into the desk drawer. 

I still need to get a lamp of some sort, but for now, it'll do.  Here we see my latest letter from my Canadian pen pal just waiting for me to write back. 

Since I was on such a roll with my cleaning and stuff, I dragged this box out of the back of Cody's closet to begin sorting through. 

It shouldn't take too long, because it's half empty.  It's got junk I stuffed into it in a mad cleaning frenzy to sort through later.  Well, guess what?  It's later.  

I did a quick glance into the box, and most of this stuff can probably be tossed, if I can just bring myself to do it.  Seriously, both this box and the other one I keep showing you -- if someone had come along without me knowing it and thrown everything out, I'd have never missed any of it.  Except that little pink thing in the bottom right corner up there.  I'm definitely wanting to keep that. 

The rest, I'd have never even remember I had it, but now that I am seeing it and holding it, I'm having a hard time getting rid of it.  A big part of it is, I hate throwing stuff into the garbage if it's something someone out there might be able to use.  The flip side of that is, I hate dealing with the idiots in the local free bees group.  

I'm sure you can relate, because stupidity is pretty much universal. 

And finally, James has put their house on the market.  I mean, we all knew it was coming, because he's been talking about it for a year, but it's still a bit of a bummer because it had always been the family gathering place ever since my aunt and uncle built it back in the mid 80s.  Their house had always been the gathering place, even when they still lived on Travis St.  

I told Cody I wish I had enough money to buy it, but it's way out of my budget, and I doubt I could take care of that much land anyway.  Not by myself, I mean.  My other cousin might be buying it, but I don't know.  I hope she does, or one of her kids.  At least that way, it'll stay in the family.  It's all Winfree land out there anyway. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I got my tax refunds yesterday -- yes, that fast -- so I'm going to go to Amazon and do a little shopping.  Not too much, because I've still got to make up for not getting a paycheck this week.  Oh, and one more thing, I got my unemployment debit card in the mail today.  There's nothing on it at the moment, but I'll have it in case they do another shutdown later in the year. 

Still Breathing

Just popping my head in to let you all know I'm still alive.  For now...

The plant has been working us so hard these last few weeks.  It's unreal.  It's not just the hard work and long hours.  It's the stress of how they're treating us.  I've never seen this place so badly unorganized as it is right now.  We can't get our parts from tubing, so we can't get ahead.  Then, we've got the assembly lines waiting on us, only we don't have anything for them, because tubing doesn't have anything for us.  And instead of solving the problem, they just want to stand over us and rush us.

It's nerve wracking, and very, very stressful.  I come home and I don't feel like doing anything but going to bed.

I don't feel like blogging.
I don't feel like knitting.
I don't even feel like playing my piano.  I'm having to make myself practice.

The only bright spot in my week has been receiving a letter from my German pen pal.  Doesn't she have just the most gorgeous handwriting?

One of the reasons I got back into pen palling was to work on my handwriting, which was never great to begin with.  Once I graduated high school, I went back to writing in print, which I preferred.  My cursive writing  had really deteriorated through disuse.  It's gotten better, but was never this elegant.

OK, back to my story...

Then, of course, there is the stress of dealing with my stalker.  He just makes me sick. He literally makes my skin crawl.  Him staring...always staring at me.  He'll even deliberately position himself so that he's in my line of sight.  One day last week, I was getting a drink out of my cooler on the shelf under my table.  When I stood up, there he was, right at the end of the line of brazing stands, just staring...Something is seriously wrong with him.

It was kind of funny today, though.  I was thinking about the upcoming Fiber Fun In The 'Sip festival in September, daydreaming about how much fun it's going to be hanging out with Amy, Christi, and Leann again...

Somewhere in the middle of my daydream, my white headed shanty men showed up -- including the one who may or may not eventually become my imaginary boyfriend, if I can ever bring myself to make an imaginary commitment to him.   They were going to be part of the entertainment.  Once they'd finished singing, we ended up talking, and I took him out....to...ummm..

TheVicksburgNationalMilitaryPark

Yeah.  Most people take their imaginary dates to a romantic candlelit dinner, or a long moonlit walk on the beach, or maybe they snuggle under a blanket in front of a fire at a ski lodge.  Or something.  Not me.

I take mine to a freaking Civil War Battlefield.  A Civil War Battlefield!!

Sigh...I'm definitely not normal.  Or whatever.

Normal is over-rated, anyway.

Anyway, I was really getting into it.  My imaginary tour of the Vicksburg National Military Park, that is.  We were reading the signs and things, and those things where you can scan the QR code with your phone and a video opens with a Ranger telling you why that spot is significant.  I was telling him about some of the statues, and who those men were -- as much as I knew.  I'm not really big on Civil War history.  Now if it were Texas history, that'd be a completely different story.  But still...

We went to the Illinois memorial -- the one where all the ghosts are.  There I ran into a fellow veteran.  I'd worn my DD-214 Alumni shirt, which he recognized instantly.  He said, "Thank you for your service." and I replied, "And you for yours, Brother."  We shook hands and said, "Never forget," then parted ways.  My imaginary friend asked who that was, and I said, "No idea."

"But you called him Brother."

"He's a fellow veteran.  That makes him my brother."

I ran my fingers along the names on the plaques.  The names of those long ago men who'd served in the Illinois regiment, and told my imaginary friend who may or may not become my imaginary boyfriend that these men had donned the uniform and swore the oath, same as I did, and that makes them my brothers forever. Whether I knew them or not doesn't matter in the slightest.


In the midst of my daydream, I put some adapter tubes into my brazing jig, flipped down my glasses, and lit my torch.  That's when I discovered I hadn't put a header onto the parts.  I said, "I don't know what I thought I was going to braze."  And looked up to see Stalker, just staring.  Laughing. 

He. Makes. Me. Sick.

I thought, "If you only knew!  Here I am, I'd rather be with an IMAGINARY boyfriend, than with you in real life, you pathetic loser!"  Seriously, if he's the best I can do, I'd rather do without.

Imaginary husbands are better anyway.  They never leave their dirty socks on the floor.  They never complain about what's for supper, and they never hog the remote.

So there.

Monday Miscellany

1.  Sigh, still no guitar book.  I checked the status on Amazon, and it said it was delivered.  Nope, it's not here.  I go to USPS website and enter the tracking number.  It says the package was held at the post office at my request.  Nope again.  I never requested it be held there.  I scheduled a re delivery request.  I noticed a couple of new puppies wandering up and down the road, so I requested the carrier leave it inside my glass door in my car port if it doesn't fit in the box.  So hopefully, I'll get it tomorrow -- and not chewed up.   

2.  I finished my second virtual race, and got my medal.

It's big, and heavy, just like the first one, and has a satin ribbon.  OK, it's probably polyester or something, but it's satiny feeling.  I was impressed with the detail in this one.

It's hard to get a good picture of it, though.  I'm going to have to come up with a place to display these, because yes, I've already signed up for a third race.  This one is King Arthur, and it takes you on a virtual route through North Cornwall, England.  That's where my white headed shanty men are from.  I was hoping it'd go through their little village, but no, the route is farther east.  It does end up at Tentagel, so that's cool. 

3.  I broke down and ordered a keyboard stand.  Practicing with it on the bar was starting to hurt my back.  Heh, I was practicing this afternoon and was so tired, I sat on my barstool.  Since I'm short, My feet were swinging.  I laughed and said, "I feel like a little kid again, with my feet not reaching the floor." 

4.  I forgot what I was going to put here.

5.  Your PSA for today:  when you are going to take a bath and decide to put on your  YouTube playlist of your white headed shanty men, do it before you take your pants off.  You're Welcome.

6.  I got a message from one of my English pen pals.  She received my letter, finally.   She said, "We ought to get on quite well."  Yippee!  I've also got one from Czech Republic that I need to write to.  I'd better get started.

7.  I still need to practice my guitar, so I'd better end this and get to it.  Plus, I want to go over my piano music one more time before bed.  I'm thinking of setting my alarm 10 minutes earlier, so I can practice some in the morning before work.

8.  Y'all apparently like my story of being chased across the parking lot, judging by the number of hits that post got.  I've got more stories on the way!  Or maybe I'll just need to get that book written after all.

9.  Good night.