"Forgive me, for I have sinned. It's been 11 days since my last Blog entry." It seems like the more letters and emails that I have to write makes Blogging far less appealing. Maybe it's just the subjects that I have been consumed with as of late. The biggest thing is trying to be an advocate for my daughter and the education that she deserves to receive. I cannot, with a clear conscience, leave the total responsibility of what my daughter's education consists of to the teachers and administration of the Los Angeles Unified School District. If I did that I would never be able to live with myself and it would be doing an extreme disservice to Carlin and her abilities. Let's just say that if money were not an issue we'd be sending her to private school, no question about it. Since we aren't able to, I have to be Carlin's personal zealot.

The horror... and I KNOW why the cow is laughing...
Carlin and I were at Ralphs Supermarket about a week ago and bought a SEALED package of the Laughing Cow Creamy Swiss Cheese. I stress sealed because all of it was, the packaging was not questionable. Carlin unwrapped one of the foil wedges, after she had already consumed a few and the is what was LIVING inside:

You think the company is scared? You better freaking believe they are. Comments? Opinions on what you think we should do? I would appreciate them.

Does anyone have any ideas for a more "User Friendly" Blog? Blogspot's interface is not that easy to use and my whole Blog has decided to arbitrarily shift the box that I had on the right side down to the bottom of the page and I don't for the life of me know how to fix it. It's driving me crazy!

I've done little projects here and there...more hats, a pair of bootie slippers, finished a poncho and I need to start one for my mom...pictures of those things to follow.....

I finished the nephew's holiday present...Hat and Scarflet.

At this point, I think i'm way ahead of the gift giving game. The other day I took a break and whipped up a hat for myself...

I just can't stand making EVERYTHING for other people.
I started something called the "Easy Peasy Poncho"(http://www.myrawood.com/pages/poncho.html)
yesterday, so far so good...
Carlin and I missed the SnB last Thursday, it was hubby's birthday
and it actually turned out he had to work late and Carlin had less homework then she thought, so we could have gone. Bummer.

"I'm too old for this shit (ITOFTS)." I found myself muttering that today wayyy too many times. I find it interesting that no matter what age I progress to my parents are somehow still in a stage of 'arrested development' and view me as an 11 year old. I'm 35. (that is the first time since i've turned this age that i've written it outloud) My parents (who are not married to each other) are getting older and I need to have even more patience with them, sometimes I feel such an urge to go ballistic in their presence. But I don't, I bite my tongue. I move on, or at least attempt to.

We still have boy rats that need loving forever homes, i'm cleaning out too many cages, too many times a week. Carlin does not have a problem letting me do all the work and i'm tired of screaming about it. Impasse.
ITOFTS.

I wouldn't give this homeless man any money today, first of all, he came up to the open window of my car when I was at a red light and scared the crap out of me and secondly, I was tapped out. He then proceeded to profanely tell me what he thought of me (fearing for my safety, I already had the window rolled up.) ITOFTS.

I'm just going to chalk it up to a bad day.

On another note, I finished the nephew's hat and i'm moving on to his "keyhole scarflet" He's 4 and I felt unsafe about a 4 year old with a scarf. Dixie gave me the great idea for a 'keyhole scarflet.' Thanks, Dixie! I'll post pictures when i'm done with the set.

The SnB was totally fun yesterday, I think a Sunday afternoon has such a great vibe that's perfect for it.

Hmmm, I swore to myself that I would not wait this many days between posts. I was thinking last Friday morning that this past weekend would be a perfect time to get a jump on my holiday projects. Unfortunately, that turned out to be not so. I wound up picking Carlin up from school early Friday, she had a major headache. We ran to Trader Joe's and after we were finished ran to the bank where the car died as we were pulling out of the lot. Not a quick painless death, but a shimmy-ing and shaking death. We managed to make it another block and it completely died, wouldn't turn over, nothing. It still amazes me that people think you are sitting in the middle of the street because you choose to and honk at you because you actually decided to park there, on purpose. These are obviously people who have never had a car break down. Otherwise, they would know it just adds to the stress of the situation. Luckily, for us there was a mechanic just across the street (like Starbucks, there is one on every corner). Turned out to be the Alternator, which I had a feeling it would be. They were able to replace it while we waited and I didn't get scammed. So, I guess all things considered it turned into a positive experience. I was telling my friend Molly about it on Friday night and her first question to me was "Did you have some extra money?" Peculiar question, I thought. I said, "yep, thank god." She said, " cars know when you have extra money" and in her experience that's when they break down. I thought that was a very astute observation.
We don't have air conditioning and true to my friend Karen's predictions it turned into the hottest weekend of the summer, thus far.
I managed to finish the niece's poncho but it was just too freaking hot for anything else. I could hardly scrape myself up to get more ice water. We all kind of just layed around basting in our own sweat. Isn't that a pleasant vision. I'm looking forward to the Weather Service's projected cool down toward the end of the week.
Poncho picture accidently removed by Carlin (even the Blog isn't safe)
I ended up using some "fun fur" as the edging to the poncho, what 5 year old little girl wouldn't love that...

Ok, i'm willing to bet that whomever the masochist is that ordered school start for L.A. secondary schools prior to 7:30am is still in bed sleeping, the bastard. I don't have a problem waking up early in the morning, I am a self-proclaimed "morning person." However, I hate waking up at 4am in stressful anticipation of the blaring alarm that will sound at 5:30am. Why set the alarm at all if i'm already waking up that early, you ask? Well, if I knew deep down in my psyche where my Circadian Rhythm can be found, that the alarm was not going to sound, i'd sleep right on through to a VERY late 7am, maybe even *gasp* 7:30am. That is the time I usually wake up over the weekend. So, the theory itself has been proven. Carlin would sleep until 11am, not respond to any sort of an alarm and therefore, miss school every day. That is why I get to wake up so early, i'm her "Alarm." Where you ask is my DARLING husband Thomas in all of this? Sleeping, of course!
Thomas sleeping:

Men can be useful, just not in this case.

Carlin and I haven't made any really noteworthy progress so far this week on any of our projects, which stinks...we are finding that we are a little busy AND a little disorganized. Both of us are looking forward to the SnB tomorrow night (I hope she has her homework done!)