Echo in the Tardis... err.. Bone. Diana Gabaldon book signing.

I am such a bad blogger. I promise, when Hell is over I shall be back to my overly verbose writing updates.

Work has been killing me. I kid you not.
I even had to take a mental health day this week. Before one of my superiors reads this and fires me, I very much felt sick and had the start of one of my poundy headaches. You know I don't call in sick if I'm not, so please don't fire me. I couldn't come into work because I was not physically capable to do so.

Speaking of work, it has gotten easier in the aspect of the actual work. Today I only had to ask for assistance twice, and it wasn't actually "what do I do" type questions, it was the "This is how I think I should code the ticket, and I do not want it bounced back, is this correct?"
I'm on the Approved Escalation List, have been for a week now. I could have been on it as of 2 weeks, now but I had chosen not to. I did not feel I was ready. Now I am, and so far nothing has come back as a feedback. My current team lead is not the kind to hold or delay "coaching" someone, so I'm pretty sure that there hasn't been one.

But yes, work is killing me. The mad rush of beginning of the school year is starting to calm a bit, but then the politics come into play, and still makes tons of work.

I've realized one of the reasons I dislike my job...
I am good at it.
What do I mean by that? I mean that I actually know what I'm doing, and how to do it. So I get through my calls rather quickly. Which means I am doing 2 to 3 times as much work as everyone else on my team (and I have the daily stats to prove it.)
This means I also burn out faster. But I cannot slow down, I cannot purposefully make calls last longer, it just is not possible.
It was just like how I started on Postal.
The thing that saved me was actually getting onto Backlogs, I was able to pace myself a bit more, and even then I still did more work than everyone else, but I didn't have the constant beep in my ear, and I was able to research the problem before I ever had to speak to the client.
It was my manager's wish here on DOE to eventually get me on "Contacts" (aka Backlogs), but there is nothing they can do to get me started on that till after September is over at the very earliest.

I digress, lets move along.
Wednesday, after a particularly bad day (back was tweaking, people were horrid... the usual.) I get an email from Mother of Mine stating that we didn't have a choice, we were going to drive to Denver for the Echo in the Bone release and book signing of Diana Gabaldon.
Mind you, all I had wanted to do was curl up in my jammies and sleep. If I closed my eyes for a moment, I would honestly fall asleep.
But, Katte had gotten us tickets for our spot in the signing line.

Mother of Mine and I drove to Denver and went to Baja Fresh for dinner before going to The Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch.
We got good seats in mad crowd of people, and as Katte so elegantly put it "Well at least I'm touching butts with girls I know" - mind you, she had the benefit of being wedged between Michelle and Myself. So every boob to elbow collision and cheek to cheek bump was nothing new for us. (Come on, we've known each other for about 10 years now) Katte was lucky sharing bum space with us, as I unfortunately had to touch a half tock with a stranger! Oh well, at least here was no boob to elbow collision with the stranger.

Diana aka 'Herself was absolutely amazing.
I learned something that I did not know.
Outlander, when it was in it's original blank pages of "What do I want to write about", was inspired in part by an old episode of Doctor Who.
"There was this image of a fine figure in a kilt. And at that point, I thought "hmm... Scotland would be nice"" (I'm paraphrasing of course, but I was rather exhausted and cannot be required to remember every word. I just don't have the mental ability. -I honestly can't wait to get the full use of my facilities again)
Diana is a talker. She loves her digressions. (and that, is her verbage)
She did a reading from Echo, which to be quite honest had all of us blushing in our seats. (Thank goodness there were no small ears in the crowd!)
I shall share a line from the reading, it's in truth the only line I can remember... well.. other than the last line.. but I'm not going to share that because... well.. I'm ebbbil.

"I haven't seen you naked in 6 months. Which means you'll be the best thing I've seen in 6 months." Jamie to Claire. (And forgive if I got any wording wrong, it's past my bedtime, and read the disclaimer above)

Oh, I bought a copy of course. I couldn't not. I have all the other books signed.... Oh shoot.. I don't. I forgot that I do not have a full collection, as I do not own a copy of Fiery Cross, nor Breath of Snow and Ashes. Those are Mother of Mine's copies. Oh well, it's not like I could afford to buy them that night as it was.

Hunny of Mine is jealous that I got to go to the signing. Mind you, he's currently in Singapore at the Grand Prix. Jealous? Moi? Never. ;-) (He keeps sending me messages while he's in the Executive Lounge of the hotel eating sushi and drinking Gin and Tonics... the lucky bast... lucky bloke)

I politely informed Hunny of Mine, that we will of course just have to go to Scotland when Diana is in on her yearly visits. I shall of course by then have my full set again. And of course Hunny of Mine will have actually been introduced to the books properly. (I can't recall at the moment if he has actually been able to read them or not, but if he hasn't I do know he is intrigued by them.)

All in all, I had a wonderful time at the signing. For photos, and other anecdotes you can go read them at Mother of Mine's blog here.

One last note before I go. Diana has given me hope. She didn't start writing Outlander until she was 35. Mind you, she was very lucky when it came to landing an agent. In fact, she got what every author dreams of. I doubt I'll ever be that lucky, but at least I know that even at 35, one can start a persons dream. Oh, and she was amused that the last time I saw her was when Drums of Autumn was coming out, and it was in California and I was like 12 or 13.

Oh, big news involving "The Wedding", so I didn't blog about it, which I'm glad about. But with Guy coming to town in December, there had been chatter about having a handfasting while he was here. Just a small intimate thing with a few friends. Then of course as these things do.. it spiraled. No.. snowballed. Suddenly it was becoming an actual wedding.
Between the stress from a wedding I wasn't wanting to deal with and work, I snapped. I reached my breaking point. There were constant tears, fighting etc.
I finally reached a decision.
I called it off.
Back to what was Plan A.
IF there is a Handfasting, it will be at my going away party in June. It will be casual, it will not have any pomp and circumstance, and it will just be Myself and Guy getting handfasted with my family and friends.

The actual wedding will happen in October, and will be in England. I feel bad that a lot (most) people in the US won't be able to attend. But unfortunately, I'm not going to feel too guilty. I do not have the ability to pay for the plane tickets of everyone I want to be there, so I am not going to stress out over things I have no control over. If someone really wants to be there, they will make it happen. I cannot. If they cannot be there, they will be there in spirit, and will be in my thoughts.
I have a wonderful Hunny to Be, who is being wonderful and is researching places for us. He's got some favors tucked away in his sleeves, but no matter where we end up having the wedding, it will be fantastic. (Alright, just heard Christopher Ecclestons voice right there... Can this blog get anymore Whovian? Oh yes it can.. stay tuned)
I am contemplating the Doomsday song as my down the aisle song. It's beautiful, it's mostly instrumental, and it would be quirky at a wedding, just like me.
Which of course means, Song for Ten would need to be played at the reception, and if that is played, then Love Don't Roam also needs to be played. Ah, the "Ten" song trifecta.

Oh, completely random. Mother of Mine just finished watching an eerie British show from the 70's called "The Children of the Stones" which even if we hadn't just come back from a book signing of Diana's, and both are champing at the bit to start reading Echo in the Bone, would have still immediately gone "oh my gawd, this reminds us of Outlander"
Standing circle of stones.
Buzzing coming from the stones.
when you touch the stones, you hear screaming, and get flung multiple feet away.
Time being manipulated by the stones.
Some people being "sensitive" to the stones.

Honestly, thats the quickest synopsis of the show. But it screams of Outlander. And it made us wonder since we just found out that Outlander was originally partly inspired by a British show from the 70s..it made us wonder if also this little obscure show was also partly inspiring it. Or even if she knew about it at all.

Alright, I guess I'm done babbling for now.

Current book:
Fatal Journey by Kathy Reichs
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

I have to admit, I really do like both covers. I'm not sure which one I like more. I know of course the US cover is the one Diana has been wanting for years.

Made it through day one of Hell, and the neatest thing

I survived the first day of hell.
I can honestly say I'm shocked at how unlike Postal it is. We were in the hole pretty much all day, I mean not just some... it was a constant 60-150 calls waiting for 30 minutes or more. But some how, I made it through without wanting to cry, without hitting my mute button and wanting to call someone something I shouldn't repeat... None of that. And I didn't have to ask for much help unless it was one of the issues that we supposedly never see and aren't supposed to ever happen in the computer world in general. My team lead still needs to learn the art of talking to people without making them feel like idiots.. but... whatever.. he's not going to learn it anytime soon. And I've only got to survive 9 months. Less than that actually.

But I'm not going to go on about work. I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune about it by the end of the week, so whatever...

The reason I am blogging right now, is I can honestly say I have had tears brought to my eyes.

I started a phenomenon on Ravelry... seriously epic. I started a little group about doing a Pen Pal exchange. I figured no one would sign up and I'd have to beg people. Round 1 had 150 people officially sign up (and a quite a few more that didn't actually sign up but thought they did).
It was a major headache to be quite honest. For the most part everyone who signed up was really great and helpful, but there were a few... well... calling them snarky twits is being reallllllly polite.
It all got to the point where I was ready to tell everyone to effff off and someone else gets to organize round 2.
I had even started composing the notice informing everyone that I was stepping down from organizing round 2. But I have not posted it and I don't know if I will. No matter what though, I will be adjusting how the signups and partner assignments are done.

Today though, I got my first letter. A woman who when she signed up specifically asked to be my partner (if that was alright by me). Neat!
I can say it brought me to tears reading her letter. I was smiling, and most of all.. I was amazed.
I've been keeping my personality on the downlow for a while now due to the whole 'incident' on Ravelry, and I know that she doesn't have access to my Facebook, and though she admitted that she has checked up on my blog... she hadn't prior to me actually saying "sure I'd love to be your partner" I swear it's a situation where I think I was destined to know her.
She owns a costuming business... (hmmm how many years have I been costuming now??)
She has a sailboat... (hmm... entire summers spent on the family boat when I was a child... sailing? me? never!)
We have a lot of the same taste in books, and movies and music. (Well, other than the fact that she hates The Beatles.) She even mentioned one of my favorite movies of all time. ;-) Won't mention it here since I'm not entirely sure she's not still stalking my blog.

I can officially say, all the headache and frustration was worth it. All because of one letter. How absolutely neat is that?

Well, time for bed. I worked over 9 and a half hours today, and I'll be doing the same tomorrow. I'm going to curl up with Tempe Brennan and my cat.

Being Human, Repo the Gentic Yarn, and many other things

So my previous post was a little well... for lack of a better word... emo.
But hey, I'm a writer... it tends to be what we do at times.

After writing my blog, I went and scrubbed 2/3rds of my bathroom. This makes me happy.
I had a dust bunny, that honestly I thought he was the Prince of the Dust Bunnies, and was going to start plotting war against me.



For those who don't know, this wood burning is from Catharsis Comic, which for the most part is on permanent hiatus, but it is still fun to go back and read through.

I kid you not about the dust bunnies in my bathroom. Colorado Springs is a dust bowl, and to be honest the dust drives me absolutely bonkers. By tomorrow my counter will once again have a coating of dust on it, but at the very least it will be a while before the grandeur of the Dust Bunny Prince decides to show his bunny self again.

So, I've been catching up on a lot of telly... but I'm not going to go into most of the things, cause I can't remember most of them right now. This proves once again I need to take the time to blog more often to do my reviews.

But here is one that I am sooo ready to pimp out cause it's like AWESOME.

Once again, a BBC production.

Being Human.

Blogger hides most of my photos no matter what I do to it in the upload, so to see Annie the Ghost, just click on the image and it will get larger. I'm annoyed at blogger for this. -.-



A Ghost, a Vampire and a Werewolf trying to live a "normal" life in Bristol.

What can I say, other than Freaking Awesome. The writing was witty, and refreshing, and well... human!
There were nice twists at appropriate places, and the episode 5 and 6 (meaning, second to last and last) had me literally going "Ohmigawd!" and squeeing and being quite creeped out at times.

I like their take on the Vampires, which it is amusing as it mimics a few of the "rules" my own vampires in "A Hard Day's Bite" had. Ranging from sunlight to religion and the symbols of power. I liked it!

I'm never fond of the "Wolfman" style of werewolves, but I think that they pulled it off very well.

The Ghost, also had some great rules.

Mostly I liked how the stories intertwined, flowed and how you actually connected with each character. I actually cared about the characters which recently I haven't been doing so much in regards to telly.

Oh, and it was great seeing in the first 2 episodes not 1, but 3 Doctor Who people.

Annie, played by Lenora Crichlow was in Season 3 of Doctor Who in "Gridlock"

George, played by Russell Tovey was in Season 4 Christmas Special: Voyage of the Damned (and actually it looks like he'll be reprising his role of Midshipman Alonso Frame for at least 2 more episodes of Who, so.. WOOT!)

A character who's name I cannot recall, was played by the actor who played Shakespeare in season 3 episode "Shakespeare Code"


I very much am looking forward to Series 2 of Being Human, I hope that it lasts for a good long while as it is a very good show. If you haven't gone out and seen it yet.. Go do it now!

I'm actually getting inspired for some colorways from this show.
Sigh, I wish I had time and money enough to dye up all the yarn I want to dye right now!

Speaking of yarn...

I am currently knitting up a pair of socks called "Legal Assassin" which is a pattern completely designed by me! Don't have photos at the moment since I'm still in the "working out the kinks" phase.

This sock pattern is to match the yarn "Nathan Wallace / Repo Man"


I'm quite proud of this yarn, it was my first time working with wool.
And it will be for sale. I've got only 1 skein left for sale at this time.

Which reminds me, I've been officially made into a Yarnie on Ravelry. Woot. I'm official.


What am I currently reading?

Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs

I can already say that I'm going to be pretty opinionated when I finish this book. Not necessarily about the story, but more about the over all books in general. I will be spoiling a bit for those who have not read, so when I do post that post.. don't read if you don't want a bit of a spoiler. Don't worry, I'll give warning.

I guess I'm done yammering for now.

I give up.

Universe, you win.

My writing time is very limited right now. Meaning, I have approximately 4 days of uninterrupted writing. After that, who knows when I'll get to write. As someone will be home, or I'll be too brain dead from work.

Right now, during 2 of those days (yes, one of them was yesterday) someone has always managed to piss me off to the 10th degree to the point where I cannot write anymore.

That means, I'm giving up. I will not finish this in those 3 days I have left.

So.. You win universe. I am not going to bother working on this novella until after the move.

That is now 3 pieces of work put on the backburner.

Starting next week, all hell breaks loose at work. I'll be doing everything I can to not have a nervous breakdown, and or get fired. This period of hell will last about 5 weeks, and then hopefully start tapering off.
The week after next I have to order yarn for the goddamn wedding sweater that I've decided to knit so that I look freaking half way decent in the goddamn photos. (Thats a freaking joke.) Which, I'll have to have finished by December.. DECEMBER. Again.. what a freaking joke.

I'm done. My back hurts, my head hurts, and I want to cry. Universe, you win.

Such a bad blogger...

Work has been killing me, hence the lack of updates.

So this one is gonna be quick.

I am sorry if the updates are sporadic for the next 5 weeks. I'm gonna be brain dead. This I already know.

Here is the yarn I dyed a few weekends ago...



I'm quite happy with it. I've already sold one skein of it, and I've got plans for the others. One skein I am keeping for myself. I'm actually in the process of knitting socks to go with the yarn. Yup, a pattern of my own creation. Woohoo. I unfortunately had to frog it last night, as part of it was supposed to zig zag, well.. there was zig.. but there was no zag. Back to the drawing board as it were.

Writing has been non existent right now because of work. I'm hoping that when mother of mine heads out of town this week, I'll be awake enough to write. I think I've only got a few thousand words to go. Then I'll hand it off to my editor and we'll see if I can get a rewrite done in time for the contest. If I make it, neat. If I don't.. I'm not going to freak.

I've been crazy recently, and organized an massive Pen Pal exchange. Seriously over 150 signed up for this. I wasn't expecting that at all. But now the signups are over and all the assignments handed out. This will be fun.

Also to note, I'm finally officially a Yarnie over on Ravelry. Yup, I've taken the plunge. Woohoo.

Well... I guess thats all the time I have right now to write.

Ta peeps! Bugs and Hisses.

Massive Update!

Alright. I'm a bad blogger right now. You all knew I'd be busy, and I have been. I've also been brain dead. I've been meaning to blog.. really I have. Something will happen, and I'll think "I should blog this" or "I really need to update them..." but then I find myself in bed not having done it.
So quick sum up of my life right now.

Went to Highland's Ranch Highland Games Festival.
It was fun. Clan Blair (thats us) was the uhh... whats the word I'm looking for.. Honored Clan. Yeah that works. Basically it means we got to walk at the front of the parade. Not that I walked. I don't do parades anymore.
I got to see Scott, a fellow clan member. It was good to see him. As soon as he heard I'm moving to England his eyes got all big and you could see the wheels turning then the "Hmmm there are things I shall have to have you send me."
I have been hearing that statement a lot recently.
I did not get to see My EMT. Yes, I said MY EMT. Whose name is escaping me right now. Short story is that he is one of my Festival Buddies. Meaning when you've done so many of these over the years you tend to see the same people, and develop friendships with them. You never see them any other time of the year, and everything is nice.
Apparently he was there on Sunday when I was there on Saturday. He asked after me.
It was the Clan's Annual General Meeting (AGM for short) which meant members of the clan from all over the country came to attend.
I will admit, I preferred it when it was just Scott, his father and his brother, my mother and myself. Much more relaxed. Quiet, and just.. much nicer.
There is a running joke that every year at Highlands, I end up asleep under one of the tables. This year it did not happen. But hot damn you can sure bet I was exhausted enough that I looked longingly at the nice soft grass under one of the long tables and wished to be laying there. But Scott would never let me live it down. Not that I let him live down the Yellow boxers with Blue Seahorses. (Long story... but basically... he has finally learned how to sit in a kilt after all these years)
I only went the one day and didn't stay till close. It was worth it though, as I obtained my final Fidget.
What is a Fidget you might ask?
Well, it's a stone.
And as Curtis will call it "damn stones I keep finding everywhere."
The story of the Fidgets goes back many years, to when I was still in Highschool. Katte Beth taught me to drive as we were driving up to the Mabon Music Festival (The Ren scots were there doing the event)
There are many stories from that weekend, including Katte Beth's 4 year old daughter scrambling my eggs. (If I cannot have children in the future it will entirely be Jenny's fault. She knows this. We laugh about it.)

But here is the best photo I can find right now of what a Fidget is:

The ones we have are colored glass from a glass maker.
But, Katte Beth and I in our Witchy ways got our stones and blessed them at Mabon.
The first one we obtained is a Celtic Knot Heart. (which, you cannot get the same hearts we had, as the individual who made them has changed the design)
That, is to bring love into your life.
The second fidget is that of a Claddagh.
That, is to bring marriage into your life.
The third and final stone is the Family Tree (tree of life) (it used to be a celtic 4 knot, but you cannot get them anymore)
That, is the Family stone. To bring a safe and secure family.

These stones you are to sleep with. Only one at a time.
I had the first 2 stones, but I did not have the 3rd (hey, when I bought my stones I was 16 and not even thinking about marriage! okay I might have been 17?)

As I am leaving the country we needed to get me my last stone before I left.
Luckily, our stone guy was there! Huzzah!
I have my full set. I am happy.

Moving forward
Last weekend,
Mother of Mine was out of town and I was attempting to write. I couldn't get a thing written on Saturday and was feeling quite like the failure.
So I decided to do something productive.
I did some dyeing.
I am SO glad I did. As it is absolutely gorgeous. I will post photos soon.

Work:
Work has been... interesting. Good days and bad days. I'm still in training but I'm taking calls on my own, and slowly not having to ask for help on every call. See... I can learn things. We are already starting to see my fellow class members dropping in number. 2 quit this week. Once School starts, there shall be more.
As long as I can get through September, I'll be fine. Thats all I'm really going to say on that right now.

Misc:
Most of my spare time has been spent working on various Asylum things. Just doing things behind the scenes to drum up more business. I also reopened a group on Ravelry for my yarns, and so far.. no stalkers. This is good.

I have a custom order which will be fun and exciting, and I'll be working on a new Base, which is already drumming up interest. This makes me happy.

Writing:
I feel like a fail there. Work has been zapping my brain power, and when I do get some time to write, I generally can't. I don't think I'm going to make the deadline. But that doesn't mean I'll give up on the novella.
Who knows, mayhaps one of these weekends I'll get a burst of inspiration and finish it. I'm only... half way there?



So.. interesting little happenings today.... This is how my day started:
I was downstairs in my kitchen (which has line of sight to my front windows) and I heard a bang, and then I saw a flash of light.
My first thought was “hmmm car backfire.” my second thought was “I didn’t see a car.” my third thought was “not walking outside right now.nope.” I heard sirens, but they sounded really far off, and isn’t that uncommon a thing for me to hear. (I live tucked behind a very busy main road, so I can sometimes hear sirens and such when they are flying down Academy)
So I continue about my morning routine and 10 or 15 minutes later I’m walking out the door. The entire time though I was thinking how odd it would be if I had to leave a message at work saying “yeah I’m gonna be late, one of my neighbors was shot.”
What can I say, I have odd thought processes.
Then I back out of my parking spot, and immediately see a cop car, and a cop talking to one of my neighbors. Now, this was down and to the left of my house, but incidentally coming from the direction I thought I saw the flash come from.
When I get to the T intersection of where the cop car is, I see two other cop cars. I inch past them as it was a tight squeeze and I leave the neighborhood. So, after about 20 seconds thought, I turn around. There was no way I was going to be able to chill at work without knowing what had happened.
I talk to a nice female officer and she informed me that one of the neighbors reported that someone was banging on their door. They were searching the neighborhood, but found nothing, and the flash I saw was most likely them. (Hmmm didn’t hear the sirens until after the flash… so that doesn’t seem right.)


Well... I am half way done with my work day. I've got to decide on the dyes I want to order next, and all in all... just survive.

Later peeps!

All's Quiet on the Western front...

Alright, so my beloved readers, you may (or may not) have noticed it's been a little quiet over here in my little journal of impossible things.

Well, there is a reason for it. A reason I went into vague detail about in a blog I have not posted. I do not know if I will post the blog or not.

Lets just say, it involved drama. Not just roll your eyes type drama, but the Erin coming home from work in complete tears drama, including a massive dose of cyberstalking just because some people thought it was amusing.

My profile from Ravelry has not yet been deleted, but it will be shortly. (oy, i've got over 700 items in my queue, so I don't want to loose all that, and transferring them over to the new profile takes time.)

I've pretty much been hiding on the down low for the last week because I was sick of the stalking.

I may or may not have to change the name of my shop. (there was slander against me and my shop)

For now I am leaving it as it is. I did have make arrangements to have my group on ravelry shut down, because that's where the bulk of the stalking occurred. I do not yet know how it has affected my etsy store (thank goodness you can't leave comments on someones shop unless you've purchased something, and for the record, all my product is Excellent, and I do not cut corners on anything. The materials I use for my yarns are tried and tested materials and the company I buy my dyes from has been in business doing what they are doing for over 100 years.)

I will have my shop minion open a new Group for me on ravelry when I feel it is safe to do so.

All in all, the whole situation has sucked.

But it did show me just how many friends I do actually have.
Okay, thats all I'm gonna say about that for the moment.

Moving along,
Knitting: I've been bad on the Fangtasm sock. I haven't been working on it. Mostly because I have been working on creating original patterns.
I have the start of the pattern down for a certain Repo Man sock.
I have 1.5 parts of a pattern for Blind Mag down. She's complicated, and is requiring to basically defy laws of nature here. So she's going to take a while, but I'm getting closer with each try. Once I get this one little part down, then I've just got 1 more element to figure out, and then it's just writing up the pattern to work with the over all construction of the project. (The over all shape is gonna be easy, but it's just the pattern elements in the design that are taking a while.)

Writing:
Well, due to all the emotional crap going on, I was slacking when it came to writing.
But this weekend, I did manage to get nearly 2000 words done. Not the full goal, but nearly.
I've also done the math. If I actually do 1000 words a "day" (which is not impossible for me), it will take me 11 days to complete the minimum required word count. So I really do need to make this next week count. I will have the house to myself for the next week (or is it 2 weeks? I can't recall exactly when Mother of Mine comes home) I doubt I'll be able to get 1000 words every night with how exhausted from work I generally am, but I quite possibly can get a couple of hundred. If I can get 500 done on a work night, then I'll be getting really close. I'm also going to see if in the slow times at work, if I can get even a sentence or two added.

I'm at quite the juicy part if I do say so myself. My minion Jo is enjoying what I've got written, and once I get it all done I'm going to put a call out for readers/editors.

Work: Right now is being odd. We are getting more inbound phone calls then we have been recently. But we are no longer getting Backlog tickets (my job), basically we get a handful a day, and I pretty much twiddle my thumbs to be able to work them. (Most of them are in Hawaii so I can't call until a certain amount of my day has passed)
I am taking advantage of this down time for me, as well... for the last year (and yes, I say year because it was a year ago that the desk started downsizing and our volume started dropping off) I have been the busiest person here. I have always had something to do, and generally a minimum of 4 times as much work as everyone else. The only exception to that was my work minion Pat who did the same amount of work as me. (Though, but for one month, I always beat him out in the amount of tickets I did, and really the month he beat me out was my "Hmm the desk is going away, I don't care anymore" month. He beat me by 5 tickets lol.)
So since the next 48 weeks are gonna be hell once this one ends, I'm taking advantage of the quiet now.

Oh, in other news:
The whole drama that happened... was so bad that Mother of Mine and Hunny of Mine had to divulge a BIG secret just to cheer me up.
Guy is coming out to visit in December. I cannot even express how happy this makes me.
They were going to surprise me, but unfortunately thanks to the major unpleasantness that occurred, they decided to tell me to cheer me up.

Dyeing:
Is going well. Well,I mean for the fact that I haven't dyed in a while. Squibstitcher from Fresh from the Cauldron (whos yarn I love) gave me a few secrets, which was really awesome of her.
I am going to venture into wool dyeing, as 1) I have beautiful handspun that needs to be dyed, and 2)people still prefer wool. Personally, I think they are crazy, but thats just me. I have very good reasons for not liking to knit in wool. And I am very annoyed that I can't get the same weights of yarn in the non wool stuff.
But just because I don't like to knit in wool, doesn't mean I won't dye it. I only started with the non wool stuff because I happened to have it. And with the way I plan on running my shop, I strive to make sure I can recreate any colorway I make on both wool and and non wool. So people get a choice.

I am actually going to participate on a swap on Ravelry, which I'm hoping works out. Basically, it's for new "yarnies" (people like me who dye yarn), we will get paired with a Knitter (or Crocheter), and we will trade 1 skein of dyed yarn for a skein of Undyed yarn. So we won't be out anything other than our time/the cost of dye/the cost of shipping, but in return we will get the publicity of our yarns being out there and used in a project.

Random note #2:
Finally got to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
I must admit I highly enjoyed it. I enjoyed it much more than the last 3 films.
Yes, they changed things.
Yes, they left things out.
But in the end, everything they changed made it work without feeling forced. At no point did I sit there feeling disgusted at how they had changed the over all story. (*cough* POA *cough*)
There was really only 1 scene that they left something out of it that I was annoyed about.

Yes, there were other scenes they omitted that will make the next 2 films a bit harder to make work. (Okay, gonna spoil here. There was no Bill and Fluer. So, if there is no Bill and Fluer in this one, the whole "wedding" from the 7th story is going to feel completely out of left field. Which, I know the wedding is going to be in the movie. Oh well, I'm sure they will make it work somehow.)

I think that the kids they got to play Tom Riddle were absolutely BRILLIANT. Little Hero is actually Ralph Fiennes nephew, and then the older one... just... perfect. Seriously.

I'm gonna stop talking about HP because I really don't want to spoil it for those who have not yet seen it.

Alright, I guess I've killed enough time. Time to do a little work.

bugs and hisses.