I finally snapped a photo of one of the pillows I finished.  BIG pillow, just a few inches shy of fitting into a Euro sham.
I like my fabric: it’s waleless corduroy, nice and comfy and I put snaps in the back so it comes off – and can be tossed in the washing machine.

Also hit the bargain bins at Target and picked up a king-sized duvet.  That’s not it, unfortunately.  The one I bought is dark gray with a tone-on-tone pattern.  I just saw no point in putting it on the old comforter without washing the comforter first.

G and I went out for dinner last night, since we didn’t get to go on Valentine’s Day.  It was the second time we’d hit a Dave and Busters and we weren’t disappointed.  We ordered nachos as an appetizer.  Their name for the gastronomic treat is “mountain of nachos”.  I should’ve paid more attention.  We could literally have made a meal of the nachos alone and still brought home leftovers.  We also each ordered a sammich and fries, which were scrumptious.  No, it’s not fancy but the food’s good and plentiful.  It should be, th0ugh, at $10 apiece for chicken and turkey sammies!

Otherwise, not much going on.  Just work and trying to squeeze a few more miles out of the wheels.

Also hit the fabric outlet store yesterday and picked up some goodies there.  I know how some of it will be used, still not sure on another piece of material I picked up, but it’s all good.

However, since I didn’t have a suitable sewing table I forfeited my desktop ‘puter, tucking it into the closet so I could use the desk.  That desk is built like Fort Knox.  I hate how it looks, all modern blond pseudo-wood; but it’s so sturdy I can’t make myself give it up.  Which means I’m using the laptop ’til further notice.  I’m fine with that in some respects, just wish it were a faster machine.  I could update to Win 7 if I were so inclined, I suppose, but it kind of seems pointless now.  Better to wait it out.

And once I can figure out how the heck to move my photos from my iPhone to my laptop I’ll probably put some pictures online.

Next priority is car and house, not necessarily in that order.  If we do the house first we can do the $0 move-in and take the cash to get a car.  I have enough for one or the other but not both by the time the overtime glut concludes.  While the house is zero down, I have to have proof of funds for closing costs even if the seller covers closing costs.  Ergo the money I’d normally throw into a car is sidelined ’til the house closes.  And no, we’re not there yet.  I need to get ahold of mortgage dude this week and need to do a couple of other smallish things.  God knows how I’ll hang onto my sanity to cover it all.

Oh, wait.  That’s right.  Sanity is both optional and overrated.

Being the ultimate cheapskate, I made up my mind to get a freebie, since I pay so ungodly much for phone service each month anyway.

Used to be the free phones were pure, unadulterated crap, the sort of cheap plastic stuff that begins to disintegrate the first time you flipped it open.  Oh yeah, baby, I remember the era when flip phones were IT.  All you had to do to answer the ring was flip that sucker open and talk!  Provided, of course, that it didn’t drop your call before you could say hello!  And the signal meant you got lucky if it didn’t sound like you (and the person on the other end, to you) had some disease of the mouth and vocal cords!

Before that was the brick, and that too was amazing in its time.  Hey, we have a CELL PHONE, y’all!

Ahem.

So she of cheapskate mentality for a long time gritted her teeth and bought the mid-range stuff that was designed to be a little tougher.  No bells and whistles, just a good solid machine.

Then the freebie phones got better – substantially so.  My last free phone was my Blackberry – and spousal unit’s and daughter units’ phones.  They’ve frankly served us very well.  I didn’t use enough data to justify the mandatory data plan, granted, though I can’t recall the last time I had a dropped call.  I think I found a dead spot once on the way home from work when I was working in Snobsdale.

Soooooo…  After work today I visited the phone store determined to keep my head, keeping it free or reasonably priced.  Y’all, I don’t care if I’m a bazillionaire, I ain’t paying $1000 for a phone, and there are some mighty close to that even with the two-year contract.  Verizon had Droids for the cheap, ranging from free up into the hundreds, and several stop points in between.  Droids are the latest thing, got it.  So are iPhones, and I wasn’t paying $400 for an iPhone either.  However, I would pay $100 for a smartphone.  Given the erratic stability and security issues reported with the Droids, plus the fact that I had more than a few paid apps leftover from my iPad, I opted for an 8GB iPhone.  Make mine black, no sugar.

You have to give Apple credit; their phones are really a leap forward in technology.

Now please excuse me while I pick Poolie‘s brain for geocaching 411.

Oh, all right, it had nothing to do with purpose.  It had to do with not being able to find jack shit in the fridge and knowing there were things there which were undoubtedly well on their way to becoming science experiments.  I pulled everything from the main shelves and out of the bins.  (I was not up to the task of clearing the stuff in the door too, but most of the stuff there is recent enough I know it’s good.)  Then, after tossing the slimy produce (ick) and the outdated yogurt and such, I wiped and rearranged and you can actually see what we have.  Crazy thought, eh?

I also got around to hemming one of my two new pair of pants bought over the course of the last few days.  The ones I hemmed this morning are on the outer fringe of fitting.  I can get away with them if I lose another 5 pounds, maybe, but definitely not ten.  They were dirt cheap and they’re name brand, good quality dress slacks.  After yesterday’s shopping spree I am up to four pair which more or less fit now, two casual and two a bit more dressy.

Next project I intend to tackle is the closet.  Once I clear out the things I don’t wear and don’t fit, it’ll be damned close to nekkid.  Which explains why I tend to wear and re-wear the same things again and again lately.  Fortunately I do have several elastic-waisted A-line skirts and now that it’s getting a bit warmer I can trade off with the slim trouser pickin’s.

Older daughter came over last night because their printer died and she had to print some forms for her son’s medical care.  (He’s the one born with a deformed foot.)  Daughter and I were talking about the fact that I would really love to begin sewing again.  My mom sewed professionally and I learned to sew starting when I was about 6 or 7 years old, and to do it right.  Since someone recently gave me a couple of nice big pillow forms, this week I bought the fabric to cover them.  I had planned to do so by hand, which I can certainly do; but hand sewing takes forever to do the job that takes ten minutes, tops, with a machine.  Hand sewing is also less sturdy except in short patches.  I want to make removable envelope-style covers for the pillows and a 1-inch flange around the outside.  Doable, for sure; just not practical when sewing by hand.

I have my grandmother’s sewing machine and my mom’s serger and know how to use both.  Unfortunately both have been sitting in storage since 2004.  The sewing machine lost a key piece and while I found a replacement on eBay, I’ve never gotten around to doing the repair.   It also desperately needs to be professionally cleaned, oiled and adjusted, which costs more than buying a new sewing machine from Wally World.  I checked.  (It’s kind of like printers: it’s cheaper to buy a new printer than to replace the ink.)  The serger is fantabulous as an accompaniment.  As a primary sewing instrument it sucks.

As it turns out, older daughter’s got two sewing machines, both brand new.  I agreed to help her with a sewing project in exchange for her giving me the sewing machine that scares the shit out of her, the fancy-schmancy one that does intricate embroidery and such.  It comes with its own GameBoy external tie-in that manages the fancy embroidery settings.  I’ll probably never use the fancy-shmancy embroidery stitches either but it will be frigging AWESOME to have a working machine again.  I also need a new pair of scissors because the daughter and spousal units are both convinced one pair of scissors works perfectly for sewing, trimming hair, and opening those God-awful plastic turtleshell packages that surround virtually everything you buy these days.  Unfortunately the turtleshell crap just trashes the cutting edge of whatever touches it, rendering scissors useless for anything else.

My grandmother’s sewing machine won’t be going away any time soon.  It WILL, however, be going in for the needed repairs.  I need to see if the place is still open where my mom took her machine. Very few places still service sewing machines at all, and the ones that do tend to muck it up more than they help.

Who knows?  If I get the thing going I might actually start quilting again.  I’ve wanted a quilt for our bed for eons but G’s fusty when it comes to that and while yes, I do make the money in the house (and the quilt, too), I also take his tastes into account.  I just have to take a good look and decide if I can buy the materials for a quilt for less than I’d pay for a pre-made one of respectable quality.  Having just discovered countrydoor.com, I’m no longer sure that’s possible!  The quilt above is the one I’m considering (the white one with the gray botanical interpretation.)  If it were just me alone I’d look more at something like this:

Or this:

Of course my personal favorites also tend to be a wee bit more expensive.  Even at $150 for a king-size reversible quilt, though, they’re priced pretty well.  Some places ask a heck of a lot more for things I like a heck of a lot less. (Click on the pictures to go see the pages with more info.)

Scientists have been warning for a while that the Cascadia Subduction Zone along the Juan de Fuca plate is overdue for a nasty quake, one on par with the monsters that hit Japan last year and the one that hit Indonesia in ’04.  The concern is that this particular fault line is capable of launching a catastrophic shaker magnitude 9 or greater.

Of course, a bigger temblor smacked the region in September of last year and nothing more substantial occurred as a result.  And we’re outside of the 14-month cycle of episodic tremors.  The last would have been October-ish.  Ditto out of sync for the moon’s perigee, also theoretically a factor in big quakes.  Despite some very vocal scoffing by the scientific community that there’s no correlation, most massive quakes happened during a “Super Moon” phase of perigee.  The Japanese quake last year included.  Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, but neither should it be arbitrarily dismissed when we pretty much don’t have a clue what pulls the trigger on big quakes.  We know they’re the result of plate tectonics, or at least that’s what we know given our current technology and observations and theories.  We don’t know how to measure the tipping point that lets it all rip.

Of course the whole thing could be a big bottle of nuttin’, too.  Progress or not, we don’t have the foggiest idea how to really predict a quake.  Is today’s 5.7 a pre-quake to a big one or is it the big one in a moderate swarm?  Is a swarm of little quakes the indication that the monster’s about to rip, or are they letting off the steam it takes to make sure the monster DOESN’T rip for a while longer?  Depending on who you ask, any or all of the above could be true.

Went with the daughter unit to the mall because she wanted photos made of her son.  They had a smoking deal on a package and can’t say I blame her.  Unfortunately the photographer was so cut-rate their entire waiting room consisted of a receptionist at her desk and three folding chairs.  I decamped and headed two doors down to a store in the process of closing.  They weren’t going out of business, just moving a few miles and didn’t want to convey what was left of their inventory.  As a result, I made a nice killing on a pair of dress trousers and blouse.

Despite the fact that I still look very much like a beached whale, I’ve lost enough weight that my clothing is starting to become an issue.  Of the pants I owned only 3 pair fit, and one of those was pushing the limits.  Another five pounds and they’ll fall off.  Which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong – but I was definitely overdue for a revamp.  I recently bought a new pair that was a size smaller.  Unfortunately I bought them without trying them on first.  It was a kind of happy-unhappy moment to find out they were also too large.  So this time I tried on, I bought, and am muchly pleased with the fit.  And since they’re going to be sticking around until the 18th at the store, I am DEFINITELY going to buzz back through this week when I get paid.  I could’ve bought myself an entire wardrobe there for under $200 and it would’ve been the better quality stuff, to boot.  Today I spent $25 on what would’ve normally cost me well over $100.

Our newest grandbaby put in an appearance this week, too.  I will hopefully get some photos tomorrow and get them posted shortly after.  We weren’t expecting him for another two and a half weeks, which left his mommy stressed over her job situation, but hopefully she contacted her manager and got things covered.  Had baby waited for his due date she would’ve qualified for FMLA.  Since she was just under the wire for her 1-year anniversary I don’t know how they’ll work it out.

Time for me to wrap this up for the moment.  The fibro has been brutal for the past couple of weeks and it’s exacerbated by stress.  Even though overall it’s been good stress, it’s still taken a big toll on my body and I’m going to take advantage of a few hours’ peace to stretch out with a book and the TV remote.

It’s part of a geek vandalism slideshow, the concept being that geeks are no less likely than anyone else to do stupid things like posting bills where told it’s not allowed; they just do it with a sense of humor.  For example: on the wall where it said “post no bills” or some variation thereof, someone slapped up pictures of Bills: Bill Murray, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and so on.  I do so love a warped sense of humor. Click on the picture to see the whole slideshow. Some are cute and thoughtful, a couple fall under the category of “meh”.

Survived yesterday’s bout of overtime but came home to play taxi service to my daughter before the night was over.  I was fine had it been the originally-planned trip only.  I wasn’t so fine after several diversions along the way, one of which entailed my sitting in the car with the baby for half an hour.  By the time I finally got home it meant I’d gone virtually the entire day without eating and mama was NOT a happy camper and daughter unit knew it in spades.  If it ever hits that point again the kid is on her own.

Today’s projects have so far included cleaning my nightstand, desk and the sink area in our bedroom.  We have a full bath in the master bedroom but the sink sits outside the rest of the bathroom area.  Nice concept, not the best execution.  Gave G a haircut/beard trim.  Would be fine if he went to the barber, but we have the wherewithal and as he puts it, it saves us $15-20 a pop for me to do it.  He just has to get it done on my schedule. Stripped the old bedding and G & I made the bed.  All of which combined amounted to maybe an hour or less.  Sorted through some things to offer on Freecycle, and will likely do more of the same in the next few days.  Still need to make a trip to Wally World, much as I hate the prospect.  If I could make one stop elsewhere to get the same stuff, I would SO do it.  Also need to hem a pair of pants, fix a bracelet, and a couple of other easy-do projects like those.

Hopefully before the day is out I’ll also get a chance to rip some CDs to iTunes.  There’s a stack on my desk, all gleaned from thrift stores for an average cost of 50¢ each.

I intended to give a couple of relaxation-themed CDs to Poolie when she was here.  Unfortunately we had such a short visit it completely slipped my mind.  I also meant to send some magnesium oil with her for ZenAndChocolate, but nooo…  Sooner or later my brain will engage and I’ll mail the stuff out, I guess.  Can’t believe I haven’t done that already, yeesh.

Somewhere in the deep, dark reaches I’ve got ZenAndChocolate’s address.  I’ll mail her that and maybe some books, provided I can find out her preferences in that department.

While plenty of scientists and pseudo-scientists protest (too much), I view science as just another religion.  Yes, it pretends to rely on logic and on empirical fact – i.e., by direct observation.  Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?  Careful research carefully documented and results that can be achieved over and over again, proven by reaching the same outcome by different people.

That’s the ideal.

The reality is that science is as closed-minded as the Spanish inquisition, just less directly vicious to its detractors.  I am all for repeatable experiments and responsible testing, don’t get me wrong.  I just think there are aspects of life – like, for instance, the very fact that you and I get this whole communications thing – which sort of skirt the Bunsen burner a little.  We know when things are alive.  Mostly.  Except when people are brain dead, for example.  Are the brain dead truly dead, the mechanics of their bodies irrelevant to the departure of what makes them human?  How about a seed?  Is a seed alive before germinating?  Is it dead?  Is there a middle ground between the two, a razor’s edge holding the potential for life but still shy of achieving it?

One of the latest scientific theories is that the earth is alive.  Yes, I mean the world, the oceans, the molten core and the rocks and water and everything else we know (and more than a little we don’t know).  Lest you scoff that this is either an old April Fool’s joke or something gleaned from just another New Age site, au contraire.  This is an excerpt from the article on Science Daily:

Earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects — for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA — are animate, that is, alive.

Read the full article here.

Radical assertion?  Only in science.  Countless religions have long held that our planet and every rock and drop of water is alive.  Most Native American cultures treat the world as a living thing, as do Pagans.  So whether or not it can be called radical – scientifically speaking, definitely so.  New concept, though?  Hardly.

My point is that no matter how empirical science attempts to be, sooner or later Dr. Bullshit has to acknowledge things aren’t quite that simple.

I’m just sayin’.

Author Rupert Sheldrake is calling science’s bluff.  Like me, he’s asking scientists to recognize the simple facts that there are more things on heaven and earth than man can… well, you get it.  Sheldrake’s book, The Science Delusion, puts it point blank: science doesn’t have all the answers.