Number Crunching #161

Actually figured on 12/15/2009

Quicken Cash Flow = -332.54
STEF Total = 6.15

October Budget Meeting

Reconciling Quicken with bank statements: Done.
Reconciling last month’s budget: I didn’t make a budget the month before. October was horrible with $505.00 in bank charges. And I also got the notice that my house would be foreclosed on unless I did something.

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Lovecraft is Missing

Cthoo Loo, Where are you? Has absolutely nothing to do with the storyline the comic explores, well except that H.P. Lovecraft has gone missing and the elements of his stories are not as fictitious as one would hope, but it is the best shout-out to Scooby-Doo ever.

But I am easy to please. :)

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Nine years and six months

My supervisor had me look over a questionnaire she had to fill out for the higher-ups that listed how long everyone in the division had been employed. I had a "it's been that long?" moment seeing mine was nine years and six months.

Not a "holy crap" moment, but it does make me feel less bad that I have finally duplicated costume ideas. I didn't finish Tin Man Adora for today, which is celebrate Halloween day at work, so I reluctantly pulled out pirate garb. Then on the commute in, I realized that while I have duplicated the idea, I have completely replaced everything I wore. The only things I have left from that outfit is the jewelry and I didn't wear that today. LOL!

3:45pm: I got a plant for participating in the costume contest. Blah, I'm so ready to go home. The AC isn't cranked up high enough for the layers I'm wearing. I also need to call about the Friday night plans, finish sewing, sleep? I should probably get more sleep tonight.

But Mustard cannot knock the lamps off the nightstands anymore (his new favorite past time in the middle of the night and now both my lamps are broken). I tied the electrical cords to my bedframe so there is no slack. Too bad I didn't think of it when I only had one broken lamp.

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Monday sucked but Castle didn't

I got home at 7pm-ish. Sewing and TV don't mix. I got two suit pattern pieces cut out of the tissue paper, and two basting seams sewn out of the six I needed to do. And I'm still trying to figure out how to keep the eyes from burrowing back into the fabric. Two hours of overtime at work at the end of the day when I've been up since 3:00 am is not good for me or the work.

I have boning now so plan tonight is to finish the corset and get the suit cut out of all it's fabric. According to pattern, I'm supposed to have outer fabric, fusible interfacing, and lining fabric. However since my jacket outer fabric isn't as heavy as they recommended, I think I'm going to ignore the fusible interfacing (I detest working with stuff anyway) and back the jacket body pieces with canvas. The collar will be reinforced with leather inside of it, which is a historical throwback to the bobby of London's uniform to help protect the neck.

Castle's Halloween episode sent me to a happy place. Castle actually solved the murder, making the leap that connected the dots. I haven't been playing much attention to counting who solves what, but I think Beckett has been getting more if they don't set a trap for the murderer to step into. And to make all the Browncoats happy, Nathan must have been in the Mal costume for a good five minutes of screen time.

I do have issues with trauma being the root cause of why people become vampires, cops, and crime writers. Though Castle refused to blend into that stereotype and laughed it off with "This is what I do." The other thing I noticed that in a lot of interviews and articles, they have been stressing how selfish and irresponsible Richard Castle is and how is daughter is raising him. But I'm finding his is a very good father, despite his unease of knowing what guys like him would do with a girl like Alexis.

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Will strangle any Butterick pattern instruction writers

This will make more sense once I have the Garb Closet post about the construction on my Victorian corset up.

YOU CANNOT SEW THE PATTERN WITHOUT FLIPPING THE TISSUE PAPER OVER AND CREATING LEFT AND RIGHT PIECES TO SEW TOGETHER! THAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED ON YOUR BLOODY INSTRUCTIONS FOR ALL LAYOUTS! AND IT IS NOT!

Thanks to this quality control error, this project has taken as much time as the effigy corset and it's hang up was that I didn't have tissue paper for it.

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My Life According Nickleback

via erinm_4600

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. You can't use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Repost as "my life according to (band name)"

Are you a male or female: Someday
Describe yourself: Should've Listened
How do you feel: Feelin' Way Too Damn Good
Describe where you currently live: Believe It or Not
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: See You At the Show
Your favorite form of transportation: Flat on the Floor
Your best friend is: Another Hole in the Head
You and your best friends are: Yanking Out My Heart
What's the weather like: Breathe
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Deep
What is life to you: Old Enough
Your last relationship: Diggin' This
Your current relationship: Leader of Men
Your fear: Cowboy Hat
What is the best advice you have to give: Hold Out Your Hand
Thought for the Day: One Last Run
Your soul's present condition: Worthy To Say
Your motto: Not Leavin' Yet

*Giggle* That was fun!

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The BookWorm

Okay we skipped fall

Yeah, waking up to a temperature in the 30s degrees, that's not fall people! I spent an hour Sunday morning trying to light the pilot light on my living room gas heater. It refused. Made sure to put the electric blanket on the bed last night. Living room heater refused to light the pilot light this morning to, so I'll probably have to take it apart tonight so I can light it manually. Luckily, nothing was wrong with my electric heater for the bathroom or the oven. But I was hoping for a few weeks of being able to live without ACs or heaters and reduce the bills a little bit. And yes, I spent the weekend bundled in sweaters. I turned stuff on this morning because I had to get dressed before the sun rises. :p

I'm all caught up on housework, so I should have free time in the evenings to work on sewing. That was my goal for the weekend, so I consider it accomplished.

I even got to work on some computer projects that have been on hold, thought it balked at doing image searches for people I want to cast as characters. :p So I'm finishing those searches today at work. *Sigh*

Now if only time would go ahead and change. The quality of daylight has my body thinking 5am is 4am, so I'm sleeping right past when I should be getting up. :p

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The BookWorm

And the stress is gone

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got the word back from my professor. The Faulkner paper has been passed to those who grade. I have no idea how long that will take, but I will try to do better at keep alerted to emails from Southeastern.

So what will I do now? First, I have to clean the house. I have company coming Friday night. While doing that, I will shelve all the Faulkner books and file the mass of papers I accumulated. Then I'm going to sew. But I will at some point sit down and figure out where writing projects were put on hold. But I need to sew before Halloween.

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The BookWorm

Sewing Hobby? I did have one once upon a time

Yeah, I'm trying to get the costume done for Halloween. Fabric stashes in my house and Suzanna's avoided the major expense on yards of fabric. Suzanna had the bright idea to go to Academy after we were less than impressed by the toy guns available in the costume shops. I have small hands, but they are bigger than a six-year-old's. Huzzah, Academy had a plastic handgun (so no tripping metal detectors) that fires rubber bullets modeled to look like a Magnum .44. I could probably use it for a Dirty Harry costume too. We also found a holster and belts to make the belt and bandoleer. Now all I need is a frog to hang the holster further down my leg and the proper hate. And to get the sewing done, natch.

Digging through my material stash reminded me off all the sewing projects I want to do, the ones I set up the Garb Closet to chronicle my attempts at. Serious writing is on hold until after December 12th (or I find out I failed whichever comes first) and I could fill the spare time with website projects, but I think I'd rather decrease the material stash until I'm ready to pick up the next writing project.

Course I could gorge the sewing bug on the Tin Man costume and not get anything else done. Nebulous planning at its best!

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The BookWorm

Car problems solved!

*Snicker* On the one good day I had with a new battery, I noticed the AC acting strange when I got home but figured I had messed with the dial maybe that control I was going out. Then while we were trying to figure out why the battery was draining, I noticed that the AC was still messing up. It cycled through blowing out of all the vents and I hadn't touched the controls for it.

The issue draining the battery: a relay that was telling the AC to cycle even when the car was completely shut off.

So I have a double sense of vindications. I'm back in my car and comfortable with driving again, and girl was right about macho engine stuff. :D

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I have no idea what is wrong with the car

I thought it was a rundown battery, and my uncle took care of it and got me two new tires that I didn't know I needed. Car runs fine for one day. Friday it is so dead it doesn't even crank, Jim. Double check everything, so we must have ended up with a dud battery.

Saturday we trade in the battery for a bigger one. Car cranks fine. Now I didn't drive it anywhere; I had no where to go. Sunday dead and no cranking, no sounds no nothing.

So something must be draining the battery and it must be something under the hood that we can't find. I haven't had to miss any work because I'm borrowing my parents' spare Santa Fe. But I hate driving it in the nasty weather we've been having, and I really didn't budget time correctly this morning and had to make an emergency gas run because the Santa Fe was empty.

Meanwhile, I can't crank my car with a nice full gas tank.

I really don't see how I can budget Halloween this year. I have to play catchup on too many bills now. Normally if it was just my "blah I don't want to play with people" mood, I wouldn't mind getting dragged out of the house regardless. But this is my "I've been a bad girl fiscally" mood. I really can't justify partying when I owe so many people money. *headdesk*

Stargate Universe was good. More on that when I'm in a better mood.

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The BookWorm