Out Of The Mouths of Babes and Crafters Block

Next door there is a little boy about 6 or so, a typical rough and tumble kid that gets into his normal share of trouble. Lately he has been hanging out with two other little boys who are into skateboarding. These boys are emulating the big skater kids with the shaggy 70's hair and the whole 'I'm so cool' attitude. As I was walking to the mailbox the other day I heard one of the kids say to his friend 'fuck you, retard!'.
While I'm sure he heard these words right in his own home it got me thinking about when I was a kid and you never heard anything stronger than a 'dammit' here and there. I didn't know the work fuck existed until I was at least in high school and I don't think I said it myself until I was about 30. Not that it really bothers me, my husband says it at least 10 times in the course of a normal conversation, but hearing it come out of the mouth of a 6 year old did stop me in my tracks for a minute.

And what does crafter's block have to do with this?

Nothing at all.

I've just been experiencing a little bit of uninspiredness lately when it comes to making things for my etsy shop. I need something new to make but don't know what and I don't want to spend any more money on supplies to try out something new. I think part of it is that August was my best month ever on etsy and September is a lot slower. I'm wondering if it's because I raised my prices a little on some items and also raised shipping after doing my books and realizing that I was losing money on shipping what with at least 50c for each envelope and bubble wrap and then a minimum of $1.50 for the actual postage. Or it could be that there are just so many jewelry sellers on etsy that it's getting harder and harder to be seen.

Oh, well, let me get into my 'studio' and maybe if I just get myself going instead of sitting at the computer I'll have a moment of inspiration or something.

Mammograms and Cell Phones

I went for my annual mammogram a week or so ago, which just isn't that big of a deal anymore. I made my appointment for 8am hoping that I would get in and out quickly, which I did. The new imaging machines are so high-tech that you only need four pictures, so it's a quick squish squish turn squish squish and you're done. I guess for some people it might be a little painful, but I'd much rather have a mammogram than go to the dentist-which I have to do next week-or have a pap smear.

I am always reminded of the old Saturday Night Live sketches with the Land Shark when I hear the word mammogram. Remember the shark saying 'candygram'? Try it, you'll see what I mean-mammogram-candygram. Do they send candygrams anymore?
So, what does my mammogram-insert land shark voice here-have to do with cell phones?

Well, first off, I really dislike cell phones or any phones for that matter, although they are good if you ever have an emergency because there is no such thing as a pay phone anymore. I just can't stand people who are totally lost if they don't have that thing stuck in their ear talking loudly about their mammogram or something. I really don't want to have to hear your (loud) conversation when I am in line at wal-mart or waiting for my mammogram.

So, back to the mammogram and cell phone connection. The entrance to the imaging center-where they have lots of really expensive equipment to take all sorts of pictures of human parts-has a really big sign on the door: No Cell Phones Allowed. I can read English and this was pretty clear to me that this means do not bring your cell phone in here. This does not mean No Cell Phones Allowed, but we know how important you are, so you can bring your phone in and possibly screw up our expensive equipment by using your phone, we really don't mind.
And, on the inside of the door, in case you missed it the first time is another sign: No Cell Phones Allowed.
Well, I'm assuming the woman sitting across from me talking on her cell phone-loudly-was either illiterate or one of the really important people.

Two Thousand and Ninety Dollars

Sounds like a lot of money, doesn' t it? What would you do if you had that much money in your pocket right now?
Well, we would buy more new flooring for our house and maybe even pay someone to put it in our house for us if we had two thousand and ninety dollars in our pockets.
But, we don't have two thousand and ninety dollars in our pockets because....

That is how much money we have spent on our kittens since we found them in June. We just took them to the vet yesterday for their last round of kitten shots and found out they all have an intestinal parasite that they must have gotten from Pepper, who has been treated for this parasite many times but not cured. The medicine we had to give Pepper must be extremely vile as it caused her to foam at the mouth and run around the house like her tail was on fire. After the last round didn't work, her vet said to just keep an eye on her and not to keep traumatizing her with this horrible medicine. So, we have to give the kittens some of this medicine to try and get rid of this parasite, which they are not too happy about, and we'll be taking Pepper in to the kittens vet who says he can give her an injectable dose of this medicine, which the first vet never offered. However, this injectable dose is way more expensive than the oral version. But, if we don't get rid of this parasite in all the cats, it will just keep on being spread from kitty to kitty. We are supposed to keep the cats separated until they are cured. Poor Pepper doesn't understand why she is being punished by being shut in one bedroom, the other two big girls, Bear and Harrison are unhappy in another bedroom, and the kittens have the living room since we don't want them either running around our bedroom all night or tearing up my things in my studio all night. Well, after one day of this, we have had to let them out of the bedrooms for a while but have to watch them so they don't poo in the kittens' litter box and vice versa.

Aarggh.

And, Pepper went to her vet on Friday for another 90 some dollars because her eye was looking weird and we find out she has feline herpes and possibly arthritis, which may be the reason she acts so cranky sometimes, she just doesn't feel well. She also had to have her anal sacs expressed because she is too chubby to clean herself properly and also needs more fiber in her diet. So, I'm sure she'll be really happy to be visiting another vet tomorrow.

I'm thinking by the time we finish with all these vet visits we'll be in the neighborhood of oh, around three thousand?

Time Warp

Last night Keith was flipping channels in a fit of boredom (again) and all of a sudden we were transported back to 1976-insert twilight zone music here-and I was sitting in my grandparents living room watching Lawrence Welk. We were treated to a man in a lime green suit with a huge white collar on his shirt crooning some song that you probably heard in an elevator last week. I didn't grab the camera fast enough to catch the lime green suit but the big floral print one is almost as good.
Whatever happened to the Variety Show on tv? I miss Sonny and Cher and the Smothers Brothers. The whole family could gather round the tv on a Saturday night and see some good clean wholesome entertainment. Sing along with Mitch and the bouncing ball, what could possibly be more fun than that?
No, now we have to watch people eating bugs or boxing celebrities or showing their boobs on Jerry Springer for a string of beads. Bring back Carol Burnett I say!

Blogged Down

I knew when I started this blog that eventually it would get neglected just like the laundry does. I've been meaning to find something to write about all this past week but there's really nothing new or exciting to talk about. I did have my birthday and we did go out to dinner. Not to my first choice of restaurant because it was too crowded. I think everyone else in this town hates to cook almost as much as I do, the restaurants here are always busy. Well, except for the Pedal Car Cafe at times, we ate dinner there one night and we were the only customers. That was a little strange, I sort of felt like we were in the Twilight Zone and the outside world had ended or something. Anyway, I wanted to go to BJ's because they have great chips and salsa for starters and a crispy chicken salad that I have tried to duplicate at home, but it's just not as good. Maybe because I bake the chicken instead of deep frying. Everything tastes better deep fried. We ended up at The Elephant Bar and I had a crispy chicken salad, but it just wasn't the same. I did have two mai tais but since I hardly ever drink anymore, it made me feel kind of icky. Then we came home and went to bed. Poor Keith had been working out in the 100+ degree weather for about 10 hours so he wasn't in the most jovial mood that night.
I did buy myself a birthday present (since nobody else was going to). I had been wanting a portable dvd player so I could watch tv shows or movies while working in the 'studio'-sorry, I hate the word craft room but studio sounds like I'm trying to be all artsy or something. So after going to a couple of stores I found one at Best Buy with a little bit bigger screen than most. so far it's been great-I tend to stay at my workbench a little longer instead of getting bored and jumping on the computer to see what's going on in etsyland. It comes with a remote which I thought was odd until I realized you can plug this thing into your tv and use it like a regular dvd player. I was thinking that we really are incredibly lazy if we can't push the button on a machine that is about 4" away from us without a remote.
But, I'm enjoying it, I watched The Office seasons one and two again-can't wait for three to come out, I don't watch regular tv, can't stand all those commercials, so I watch everything on dvd-and now am going to watch all the seasons of Sex and The City. I tried watching a movie while working but have discovered that short episodes of shows work better as I'm trying to work on things at the same time. See, all those years of watching tv while doing your homework pays off, it helps you learn how to multitask.