Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

SO............ My youngest Son moved out of the house and WAY the heck down to Florida about a month ago. It's been weird. We are officially empty nesters now.  No kids around, and we've been just kinda chilling. There's been some stuff being sent down to near Tampa, but other than that, he's supposedly doing well. The last of the kids to leave the house, Alex I've taken a job as a lab tech at a local company that does catalog sales of stuff like sausage and cheese. You probably have heard of them, Swiss Colony.  Well, I'm working in the Microbiology department.  Our team tests the food to make sure they are safe. There are times when I am elbow deep into samples of cheesecakes and cheese and stuff. It's as close to medical lab tech as I'm going to get for now. The pay is less but the schedule is Monday through Friday so that's good. 40 hours a week for now until after the Christmas rush. Then it's layoff time. I'll deal with that...

For those of you with a Non-Christian, Non-Catholic background: There actually was a St. Nicholas. He lived in the 4th Century in Greece. He was known for putting coins in the shoes of orphan girls so that they had dowries to get married. Over the centuries, that's been turned into Santa Claus. We all know I'm married to a man who resembles Santa Claus. We get that all the time. Some child will come up to him or me and ask, "Is THAT Santa Claus?" We play along. Our favorite was a child who was touring this old log cabin in the center of Dinosaur National Monument at the same time we were. We were there in June on our Great American Vacation II. This child was whispering to her Mom as we walked around, and finally her Mom said out loud, "I don't know if that's Santa Claus. ASK HIM!" Now this log cabin is like a 4 room shack -no running water, heated by wood. The woman who lived there was reputed to be a lover of Billy the Kid. So we're millin...

I was relating how my Dad gave me advice some 20+ years ago.  He said, "Brenda, not everything needs to be a fight. Sometimes it's just better if you'd shut up." Interesting advice, but it has an interesting story behind it. (The picture has noting to do with the story, but I have to add them because I like pictures.  This is Tigger, my kitty) Back some 20 years ago, I was on welfare, getting Section 8 housing after that SOB of a Father to my son left us high and dry before I was even showing.  What do you do when 1/2 of the parental units bails on you? You go on welfare and work your ass out of that situation.  Well, Alex was less than 1 year old, and Section 8 will not allow you to be living in a 1 bedroom apartment with a child. You need 2 bedrooms, so I needed to move. I found an apartment on the other side of town in an 8 unit building; upstairs and to the right.  It'll do and Section 8 approved it. Only after that did I find out that the Landlord o...

So, Alex and I were watching My Little Pony - Stop laughing, it's actually a decent cartoon.  Well, I must explain: Alex and his Skype friends are 'Bronies' -guys who like My Little Pony.  Hey, he could be doing coke off a dead hookers ass, but instead he's watching a kids' cartoon.  I'm fine with that.  He encouraged me to watch a few episodes to gain an opinion and I did. It's better than I expected.  (BTW, to whomever made the photo: Thanks! It's a cute pic) The episode on Saturday that got me thinking was about Alex's favorite pony, Fluttershy and her wish to become friends with a Chinese Dragon named Discord.  Oh and Discord's voice is the same dude who did Q for the ST: TNG  TV Show.  Discord is a mean dragon, always trying to get an angle off Fluttershy who is trying to be nice to him.  Eventually Discord pulls one too many BS moves and Fluttershy gets ticked.  Anyone who knows the show knows, Fluttershy doesn't get ticked of...

Usually I don't throw down the pre-Christmas rant until closer to the actual day, but what the Hell.  According to the Mayans we'll be dead by then. In 2007, I made all my Christmas gifts.   In fact I spun and knit two of them from soft wool and gave them to my Mother and Mother-In-Law.  So lets roll on some photos, shall we? This one actually was taken before I washed it. The color changes were actually *dirt*. It came out snowy white with green glass beads on it.  I gave it to m Mother In Law. She folded it, put it away and I've never seen it again.  She said it would make a lovely table runner.  *facepalm* it's a STOLE! Onto #2: My Mother's shawl, Mystic Waters I think it was called.  Also spun from Targhee, with no beads. My Mom doesn't do that frou frou.  She opened it, Dad said, "Oh look, it's an old lady shawl!" and that was it. Mom keeps it on the back of her chair in the sewing room.  Hey, at least SHE didn't throw it out...

Alex, opening up his present this year.  What do you give a young man, destined to be outta the house in 3 months and going to a place where nothing is needed? I gave up.  He got every trial sized health sample Target had for dudes.  It includes febreeze and mouth wash and wrinkle release.  According to the recruiter, the earliest he can begin Basic Training is March.  After that, who knows? We'll save up the $$ and send it to him for what he needs. Christmas and New Years are over and I am certainly glad to be rid of both of them. My hope is for a better year this year. Perhaps something with a more optimism, lot less grief from both family and friends, and a bit more adventure. 

We're doing a bit of adjusting to our usual holiday routine.  I'm pretty sure Dave is just as tired of all the driving as I am of all the riding.  We'll be making the trip to the In-Laws' and Daughter in Law next weekend.  So we got to spend Christmas here! YAY!!!! I did remember a few moments ago that this is supposed to be primarily a knitting blog.  So how about some knitting, right?! Get over the holidays and get to knitting girl! So let me introduce my Husband Dave in his Christmas Sweater: A nice wool sweater that can be worn around the house or at work.  The book I knitted it from is the Knitter's Book of Handy Sweater Patterns : The whole sweater took me about 3 weeks of nightly knitting to complete on size 10 1/2 needles. It's knitted from the bottom up raglan style. The yarn is Paton's Classic Wool in a deep olive color.  Actually it's leftover  yarn from my Gloucester Coat. I'm never going to finish that stupid thing, so I migh...

 It's getting more and more difficult to visit with my In-Laws' mostly due to their unwillingness enforce the rules we all agreed upon. Apparently my Brother-In-Law feels that he is above such a rule.  He needs to abide by the same rules that the rest of the family abides by: The one that states that NO POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS ALLOWED! He took a very decent visit with my Mom and Dad-In-Law and turned it ugly by opening his big, fat,  mouth. When my Husband responded to his instigations, he just sat there with that self-depreciating smugness that I wanted to punch off. Yeah, I'm still ticked off about that and it's been 2 days.  I'm sick of rightfully holding my tongue but having to put up with someone elses' incoherent ramblings. I don't care which side of the political spectrum you're on. When the rule was made, it was for a very good reason. What makes the situation all that more telling is that we were in church at the time, enjoying a potluck lun...

Thanksgiving for a lot of people this year is going to be more of a challenge than years past.  Not a lot to be thankful for when you've lost those things that make you feel secure in your life like health insurance and your retirement savings. Yes, I've lost both this year, BUT it allows me to focus on other issues to be thankful for.  I must remember that having the ability to use my intelligence to gather the needed information to get things I need is much more important than having those things given to me. . (Pic: Dave saluting me at Leinenkugel's this summer)  I know that keeping healthy, exercising and eating proper foods will keep me pretty darned healthy.  We've joined the Y and are participating in group exercise sessions to gain strength, maintain flexibility and keep the immune system high. Our family grows their own vegetables and consumes a large amount of locally harvested venison.  Venison is much leaner than beef - which helps...

I've been working on the family genealogy for about a decade now.  It's something that I was full-bore onto about 5 years ago, but now that I've hit a few roadblocks, I've slowed down.  A few tips for the new genealogist: 1. Obits are still the best thing for finding out things.  Fortunately for me, my family has stuck around this area of South-Central WI for about 3 generations now. My local library has the Janesville Gazette on microfilm all the way back to the 1890's. I get cranky at the fact that a female ancestor was called, "Mrs. So&So" instead of her maiden name, but that's the thing that can frustrate you fast. 2. If you have the $, sign up for a year of Ancestry.com but remember to USE it. I used to set up Sunday's as my ancestor day and troll the databases looking for info. 3. Talk to your older relatives about their memories before their mind slips.  My Grandma on my Mother's side used to drop little tidbits that would tic...